By C.A. Chandraprema –

C.A. Chandraprema

President Ranil Wickremesinghe (RW) was appointed to that position through the votes of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (Pohottuwa) MPs in Parliament in a situation where the restoration of law and order was the main issue at hand. He has fulfilled that task exceptionally well. His task was made easier because the so called aragalaya sought only the removal of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa from power. When President Gotabaya resigned, large segments of the aragalaya crowds simply melted away. The UNP’s own activists in the aragalaya, the foreign funded NGOs, the Tamil and Muslim groups, the Christian and Catholic groups all left the Galle Face protest site. Hence only a residual group of activists remained at Galle Face to be chased away by President Wickremasinghe within hours of being sworn into office.

RWs real achievement however was in handling the transition of power in the days following 9 July 2022. His own private residence in Colombo had been burnt to the ground. After President Gotabaya had left the country and RW had become Acting President, on 13 July 2022 the JVP tried to take over the Parliament. JVP leaders are on record stating that their intention was to take over Parliament and get the MPs to do their bidding. On the night of 13 July some soldiers on duty near Parliament were brutally assaulted and their guns and ammunition stolen by protestors. In the midst of all this the Parliamentary political party leaders’ caucus called on RW to resign in order to placate the mobs. To his eternal credit, he refused to resign and ordered the armed forces to disperse the JVP led mobs near Parliament which was executed successfully.

After RW became President, the local government elections came due in early 2023 just months after the cataclysmic events of 2022 with the houses and properties of over 70 sitting Members of Parliament being burnt to the ground, one MP and several other individuals lynched by murderous mobs and the offices and residences of the President and Prime Minister overrun by violent mobs and vandalized. Even as late the end of 2023, the JVP was campaigning on the basis that there was now a real chance for them to come into power because powerful politicos of the established political parties were now ‘scared’ of the people. To allow an election to take place in such a backdrop, would have been the height of irresponsibility. Even after the JVP terror of 1987-89, the local government election of 1991 was held only one and a half years after the violence had been brought to an end.

Hence the putting off of the local government election was the right thing to do to safeguard democracy. When all these matters are taken into consideration, there is no doubt that Ranil Wickremesinghe is a heroic figure in Sri Lankan politics who has played a major role in safeguarding the democratic system on three occasions – in 1987-89 when he was one of a handful of ministers in the UNP who were not intimidated by the JVP terror, on 13 July 2022 and subsequent days when he refused to resign and prevented the JVP from overrunning Parliament and in 2023 for postponing the local government election and preventing anybody from reaping undue political dividends from the arson, violence, intimidation and fear of 2022.

RW’s management of the economy

However the main challenge confronting Sri Lanka at present and for the foreseeable future is the state of the economy. Hence the most essential attribute of the next President is proven ability in managing the economy. When Ranil Wickremesinghe took over the running of the economy in January 2015 as the Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Affairs of the yahapalana government, what he inherited from Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) was what the IMF had described in its Country Report No. 14/285 of September 2014 one of the fastest growing economies in Asia.

The IMF had also observed that Sri Lanka’s macroeconomic performance had exceeded expectations and that Sri Lanka was on its way to joining the ranks of upper middle income countries. Under MR economic growth averaged 6.4% a year during the nine full years from 2006 to 2014. When Sri Lanka gained independence, our per capita GDP was 91 USD. It took more than 57 years for it to increase by 1,000 USD. After Mahinda Rajapaksa became President, Sri Lanka’s per capita GDP increased by 2,577 USD in just nine years from 1,242 USD to 3,819 USD between 2006 and 2014.

However, after RW took on the task of managing the economy after January 2015, the economic growth rate dropped to 4.2% in 2015 and ended up at 0.2% below zero by 2019. Sri Lanka’s average growth rate between 2015 and 2019 was just 3.5%. The below-zero growth rate in 2019 was not due to the Easter Sunday suicide bombings. There was a sharp decline in tourist arrivals in May and June 2019 following the terror attack. But tourism started picking up rapidly from July onwards and was back to normal by November 2019.

Under MR, the All Share Price Index rose from 1,922 in 2005 to 7,299 by the end of 2014. However under RW, the ASPI declined to 5,990 by the end of October 2019. Under MR the debt to GDP ratio was reduced from 90% at the end of 2005 to 69% at the end of 2014. Under RW, it went in the opposite direction rising to 81.9% by 2019.

MR had presided over the biggest infrastructure building programme in post- independence history covering power generation, expressways, provincial and rural road development, irrigation, ports and airports, telecommunication, schools, hospitals, etc., whereas RW’s contribution in this regard was zero. His government failed to implement even very essential projects such as the Sampur coal power project or the highway to Kandy. Despite having done nothing by way of infrastructure development or even completed the projects started by the MR government, under RW’s dispensation the indebtedness of the country increased exponentially.

Between 2015 and 2019 Sri Lanka’s stock of outstanding commercial foreign debt in the form of international sovereign bonds increased threefold from 5,000 million USD to over USD 15,000. In October 2019 at the tail end of the yahapalana government, the IMF Country Report No. 19/335 observed that Sri Lanka’s economy had become vulnerable due to over-exposure to foreign debt which had increased the annual debt financing outlay to unsustainable levels. In March 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government initiated correspondence with the IMF to obtain a Rapid Financing Instrument facility but was disqualified because debt sustainability was a precondition to receive that relief package.

By the end of the yahapalana government, the country was bankrupt for all practical purposes and the world was aware of this. When Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa visited India in February 2020, he requested a three year moratorium on repayment of Sri Lanka’s debts to India. A question put to Sri Lanka’s new PM by The Hindu during that visit was whether Sri Lanka would be able to pay off its debts. MR’s reply to that was that “We don’t want to default on our debt no matter what happens”. However the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic forced Sri Lanka to declare inability to service foreign debt in April 2022.

If not for the 10,000 million USD in new foreign commercial debt taken on by the yahapalana government and the resulting increase in Sri Lanka’s yearly foreign debt servicing payments, Sri Lanka could have survived the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Eliminating queues for fuel and gas

Some sycophantic politicians claim that it was RW who eliminated the queues for essentials like fuel, gas, medicines and other imported items in 2022. That’s complete nonsense. In February 2022, the then Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa negotiated credit lines amounting to 1,500 million USD from India for imports of fuel, medicine and foodstuffs. He also obtained payment deferrals from India amounting to another 2,100 million USD. In April 2022, the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa negotiated a relief package from the World Bank for an amount going up to 600 million USD for the import of gas, fertilizer etc.

It was these supplies which were arriving even as President Gotabaya resigned, that eliminated the queues for essential imports. Until the IMF tranches started coming in March 2023, RW did not bring in any foreign exchange to solve Sri Lanka’s problems. Since then the only contribution that RW has made to the economy is to follow IMF instructions.

During the yahapalana era, RW proved beyond doubt that he is fundamentally incapable of running the economy. There were no external, global reasons for the economic downturn experienced between 2015 and 2019. Neighbouring countries like India and Bangladesh grew at rates in excess of 7% from 2015 until the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Indeed the whole world experienced boom conditions during those years. During his nine years in power, Mahinda Rajapaksa managed to make the economy perform exceptionally well despite the war with the LTTE, the global food crisis of 2007, the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the highest crude oil prices in history. Crude oil cost an average of USD 74 per barrel throughout the entire period from 2006 to 2009 and an average of USD 103 from 2010 to 2014.

No one should expect Ranil Wickremesinghe to perform like that. During the entire five year period from 2015 to 2019 the average price of crude oil was USD 60 per barrel – the lowest in recent history, but RW was unable to capitalize even on that. Yet some misguided Pohottuwa MPs who obviously have never read a Central Bank report, are touting RW as the only person who can salvage the economy! RW is certainly good at maintaining law and order, but his economic management skills are close to zero.

Ironically, RW once described Gotabaya Rajapaksa as a ‘kammuthu karanna’ (terminator). Yet real terminator of everything he touches, is RW himself. He took over the leadership of the UNP in 1994 and kammuthufied what was then Sri Lanka’s biggest and most powerful political party. He took over a booming economy in 2015 and kammuthufied it. He became President with Pohottuwa votes in Parliament and he has already half-kammuthufied the Pohottuwa. In the past several months he has kept the US Dollar rate low without importing vehicles and without paying foreign debt. The next President to take over will have to import vehicles and also start repaying foreign debt causing the US Dollar rate to shoot up, giving rise to a cost of living crisis.

Thus he has already set the stage for the kammuthufication of the next President even before the presidential election has been held. Earlier he had kammuthufied his predecessor by delayed action means by taking on 10,000 million USD in new foreign commercial debt through the issuance of international sovereign bonds. During the yahapalana government he obtained nearly 1,200 million USD by leasing out the Hambantota port and kammuthufied that money as well. He appointed Arjuna Mahendran as the Central Bank Governor in 2015 and nearly kammuthufied the Central Bank.

Taking the right cue

The list is endless. If – god forbid – RW decides to contest the presidential election and actually gets elected, he will kammuthufy the whole of Sri Lanka and there will be no country left by the time he finishes his term. This incredible ability to kammuthufy anything and everything is RWs strength as well as his weakness. Earlier in this article, I showered praise on him for kammuthufying the aragalaya, kammuthufying the JVP’s attempt to take over the Parliament and through ingenious means which could have occurred only to him, kammuthufying the local government election which would have enabled certain groups to reap undue political dividends from the fear and terror of 2022. However, when this unique talent for kammuthufication is extended to other areas as well, that becomes a serious problem.

Members of the UNP who fled en masse to escape the clutches of their kammuthufier in chief and to form the Samagi Jana Banawegaya must be watching in amazement the sight of some of the Pohottuwa’s best and brightest young MPs clamouring to get RW elected President. Despite the fact that RW was their erstwhile leader, very few members of the SJB have shown any inclination to return to the UNP. On the contrary, SJB types are probably still panting and palpitating and congratulating themselves on having made good their escape from RW’s clutches.

Even the leaders of the minority community political parties who have any experience of working with RW have not shown much inclination to join him. Those who have associated with RW know that he can be very charming and very accommodating when he needs you. But the moment he ceases to need you, the story changes drastically. MPs of the Pohottuwa who do not have the benefit of such insights are promoting RW as a presidential candidate. RW had no choice but to work with Pohottuwa MPs over the past two years because he could not have dissolved Parliament and obtained a majority to rule the country. If RW ever gets a mandate of his own to rule the country, the Pohottuwa types who are now promoting him will see a very different person. Even at this late hour I would like to give all Pohottuwa MPs two pieces of advice. The first is to read the reports of the Central Bank before promoting presidential candidates to salvage the economy. The second is to observe the behavior of SJB Parliamentarians all of whom have worked with RW for a long time and to take the right cue.