By Ruvan Weerasinghe –

Dr. Ruvan Weerasinghe

Disclaimer: What follows is a layman’s non-partisan personal reflection on what transpired over the past few decades in my experience, to result in the momentous events of yesterday – 22^nd September 2024.

“Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” – John 9: 25

It is quite audacious to think that one could turn a decimated bunch of ex-university rebels into a serious group of politicians committed to the cause of governing a country that left little room for those not connected to political dynasties built up over decades in Sri Lanka. And yet, one man appears to have had that crazy dream for some time over the past three decades.

In the process, he had to convince a bunch of hardliners who thought his dream a sellout, costing him the exit of some of the top leaders in the group and even causing some of them forming alternate splinter parties directly opposed to his vision. The heaviest cost incurred probably was losing control of university politics which was the very bedrock on which his group was built. And so, he took the JVP on a path to national politics, leaving behind one of the splinter groups, the FSP, to dominate university student politics. More recently, the Aragalaya of 2022 seems to have patched up some of those differences, but the JVP’s trajectory has been very different.

2019, the year that started taking Sri Lanka on an accelerated downward spiral, saw the formation of a new political entity, the NPP, to take this dream towards its fruition as a mainstream political party intent on engaging a much wider populace than the one in most people’s minds when they were the JVP.

The man who had this bold vision was also courageous enough to admit and apologize more than once for atrocities committed during the dark period of the party’s past especially in 1988 and 89, during which many of their members too were summarily executed. Thus, he goes down as an outlier among major political figures to make a public apology despite the fact that he himself would have been a raw 20-year-old at the time.

For a man who in most of his adult life has had to live down and explain the past of the JVP, especially whenever an election campaign looms, the man who yesterday became President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has shown extreme patience and singlemindedness to win the confidence of over 40% of the entire population of the country from a base of only a maximum of 3%. I suspect that the magnitude of that achievement hasn’t quite sunk-in for him, his party or the general population of the country just yet!

Most of us from the middle class kept looking at the JVP and its new face, the NPP with suspicion and unease owing to our own subconscious classism. Most would shroud that bias in the more respectable blanket of Marxist extremism, that the party has never demonstrated in over at least the past two decades. Thankfully, large swathes of the middle and even upper classes of Sri Lankan society had slowly and almost silently abandoned those old slogans to embrace change.

To be sure, the national calamity and the corresponding rise of a socially more conscious populace best exemplified by the massive support from all quarters of society for the Aragalaya, formed a solid foundation for the rise of the NPP. The trashing of the goals of this movement by the ‘back door’ President who came to power precisely on this common calling out of  the powers that be, by creating his own narrative of it and dismissing its cause as merely political, was clearly one reason for the massive swing of votes away from the status-quo to the cause of system change.

Owing to the dire economic situation in the country, the only rival issue of similar importance at the election was the economic recovery of the country on which all other parties had to base their entire campaigns. While that indeed was a compelling call, the very fact that decades of economic mismanagement persisted despite the status quo governing the country negated it. After all, could one expect good economic management without good governance, the very foundation of the cry of the Aragalaya?

The fact that Sri Lanka experienced one of its most peaceful elections, and arguably post-election celebrations, is testament to the policies of the NPP and the discipline that appears to have held despite obviously high emotions caused by an unexpected level of support from almost all quarters. Almost all because, a conspicuous absence of such support was from the North, the East and other areas of ethnically diverse populations (e.g. in the estate sector). This is potentially the Achilles Heel of the NPP, something that makes their work cut-out for in the next few months leading up to the General Election. It is unlikely that magnanimous statements of the appreciation of diversity and the NPP’s policy of inclusivity alone would suffice to win those hearts. A more drastic and bold approach, such as forming a wider alliance with likeminded Tamil and Muslim parties and groups is needed to address this glaring phenomenon in the election results map. It is also an issue that can easily be relegated to the back burner in the short-term due to the myriad of other urgent issues of governing this country – only to the long-term peril and unsustainable development of the country as a whole.

As is customary, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake called on all, those who voted for him and those who did not, to join him in taking the country forward. However, this time around, that should be more than rhetoric. That there will be those within the NPP whose entire focus will be in forging partnerships among the people groups and parties outside the NPP, so that we can truly put all our shoulders to the wheel to get this country out of the quagmire it finds itself in, towards a truly thriving society living out its true potential. There are many barriers to cross in this endeavour, and much unchartered territory (e.g. incorporating capable Ministers from other parties into the Cabinet, giving the most competent officials responsibilities despite their union affiliations etc.), but without the engagement of all quarters of our diverse citizenry, we have little hope of achieving these lofty aspirations. Clearly one significant pillar of such an initiative of inclusion would be to engage the numerous Sri Lankan expatriates scattered around the world, who can meaningfully contribute to forge a new Sri Lanka – one that is not simply modelled on the countries they themselves live in, but one better than even such!

I personally had this kind of lofty expectation first when Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunae was elected, and next when the common candidate Maithripala Sirisena was unexpectedly elected against all odds. It is safe to say that we missed both those buses. This could well be our proverbial last bus. We have clearly taken our first step in getting rid of our old biases by electing against all odds a President who has won the imagination of a large cross-section of society. Can we convert this new opportunity to make it count for the long-term wellbeing and thriving of a country and a people we love?

Why do I have so much hope in someone who’s mostly been in the opposition? This narrative is inaccurate, as the new President was in fact a Minister of Agriculture in a previous government. However, much more importantly, what gives you or me, armchair critics, the right to judge the ability of someone who has been able to convert a crazy dream into an amazing reality over a sustained period of two plus decades? Can any of the other candidates lay claim to anything remotely arduous as that?