By Vishwamithra –

“Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.” ~ Immanuel Kant

Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Rajapaksas are already saddled with the baggage of the status quo. Sajith Premadasa is entrenched in his own self-aggrandizement; he too has to carry an unbearably hefty burden of the negative aspects of his father’s rule and the weight could be unexpectedly knee-buckling. Anura Kumara Dissanayake too has to answer for the conduct of the old Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Napoleon said that ‘no country can escape from its own geography’, and our Presidential candidates cannot escape from their history.

However, in politics in general and electioneering in particular, the candidates who read the pulse of the voter, the ones who gauge their electorate correctly always have an unmistakable advantage over those who hallucinate and plan for the day-after-parades and enthroning ceremonies well before hand. Yet to read the voter’s mind correctly, one does not only need to be clever and gifted, one must be experienced, must be up to date in the technocracy of the times, must be honest to oneself and above all, one must be intuitive in the most elementary sense.

If any leader mixes up his ambition with the end goal of his engagement with politics, then the whole equation becomes a mere cosmetic arrangement between the politician and the voter. It should not be so. As much as the politician attempts to equate the demands of the voter with his exclusive ambition, the voter must keep the same amount of enthusiasm, same vigilance and same vigor to weed out those tricksters who pose as genuine politicians trying to garner votes at the end of an election campaign.

Ranil Wickremesinghe

Ranil Wickremesinghe has been notorious for his lack empathy; he has never been identified as a friend of the masses; never as a good communicator; relating to the real issues of the people, Ranil has seldom been defined as a crafty thinker. Yet he projects himself as a clever and strategic thinker who could negotiate with English-speaking foreign donor agencies. Ha has tried to paint a picture of all success with the management of a crisis, economic or otherwise.             

If there is one brand that has stuck to him over the last few decades, especially after the demise of the former leadership of the United National Party (UNP), is ‘born loser’. However, each time he realized that he could not win at the elections, he never failed to prop another candidate forward from his own party and secretly working against that candidate. He is extremely clever and remarkably efficient in achieving a loss for his own party. His history is a lesson one must follow not to study and adopt the strategies and tactics that head applied in the multiple races, but as examples one should deliberately avoid in adopting.

But in a very short run, as was evidenced in him being raised to the Presidency of the country through legitimate and legal yet morally and ethically frustrating fashion through parliamentary maneuvers, Ranil could be very capable and dangerous. One simply is not forgiven by his all-encompassing vengeance. He could be very loyal to his closest clan but that loyalty comes at the expense of untold sacrifices. He is not attuned to the pulse of the masses; on the contrary he desists such closeness to the common man.

The Rajapaksas

The Rajapaksas are different from Ranil Wickremesinghe. They were- not now- very much rooted on ground. But their avarice and being in power for a very long time without being contested ate into their collective skin, flesh, bone and marrow. The Aragalaya-22 completely destroyed their credibility. It, Aragalaya-22, not only destroyed their reputation, their aura and their political sustenance; it humiliated the whole clan and banished their most decorated member from power and later from our  shores. The clan that thought that they knew where the masses’ heartbeat was and its consistent beat, were suddenly found wanting in statecraft. They have lost their marbles in the political game.

Sajith Premadasa

Sajith is a totally different creature. His public and private demeanor, his style, his lingo, his work ethic, his beliefs, his superstitions, his loyalties and his leadership quality have come under great scrutiny during the last couple of years. While he has excelled in some spheres, his serious lack of empathy, his limpid superficiality in treating the common man, serious deficiency of decisiveness in leadership, lack of humility and belief in an elongated self-esteem have contributed to masses showing suspicion in his leadership.

However, the most prominent of his qualities that has placed him at a sub level, not the supreme level, is his failure to read the electorate’s mind. In contrast, his father R Premadasa, was a quintessential reader of the mind of the common man. True, it was a different era when the social media was totally absent and the mainstream newspapers, television and radio were the key instruments of mass communication. Yet R Premadasa always gave the impression to his opponents that his interactions with people was genuine and heartfelt. I have no personal knowledge about Sajith’s work-ethic but his father was well reputed for his unmatched work-ethic.

Sajith’s deficiency in ability to read the way in which the masses respond to various crises, the fashion in which they embrace one set of values and reject some and in general, how and when a correct phrase or word to be used in an oration is open for the masses to judge now. In an atmosphere of judgment, election time, leaders must sharpen their positives and eliminate the negatives.

A clear example is the pompous excesses he adopted in the most falsely ceremonious creation of a coalition of some sort. The optics created were nauseatingly stupid; it was so hyperbolically narcissistic in content and style. He shows that he has no relatability to the electorate. His brazen failure to recognize the fundamental beauty of the average voter puzzles many a political pundit. How closed his mind is, how bizarre his basic public relation sensitivities are and how pathetic he appears when he tries to compare himself with some massive and groundbreaking achievements in the country makes him look so puny. It is utterly pathetic.

Despite all his personal weaknesses and inadequacies, the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), its major components and its appeal as an alternative to the Rajapaksas cannot be underestimated. The fundamental flaw in Sajith’s arguments is that SJB and himself are being presented to the masses as  an alternative to the the Rajapaksas. Sajith’s failure to read the electorate dwells in that argument. If Sajith offered himself as a viable alternative to the status quo, then the melody of the song would have changed altogether. Not reading correctly the condition of the mass-mind in the wake of the Aragalaya-22 would be the fatal flaw in Sajith’s strategy. There is no corrective measure he could take now. That train has passed that proverbial station.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD)

AKD and the National People’s Power (NPP) have run an almost perfect campaign up to now. Despite some hiccups generated by Lal Kantha and his likes every now and then, the general campaign seems to be running smoothly. But the sincerity and seriousness of the NPP-leader, AKD, surpasses that of all others who are fighting for the Presidency of the country. His uncanny ability to read the country’s heartbeat seems extraordinary. The vernacular used by him reaches out to every corner of the country. Whether he is addressing a village farmer or a suburban worker, whether he is speaking to his teachers or the chief executives of the private sector, his authenticity and his aptitude in reading the needs and wants of each sector comes out vividly. Yet he needs to keep some of his own men out of the public platform. How he is going to do that, I don’t know.

Some time ago, in one or two of my columns I wrote about the possibility of all the political parties which are invested in the status quo getting together in order to defeat AKD and the NPP. Very recently, a day or two ago, Ranil Wickremesinghe gave a hint of such a happening. If such a polarizing does take place, the electorate will be presented with a clear binary choice. In the context of a binary choice, if and when all resources of the other parties would be in one kitty and one candidate, probably Ranil Wickremesinghe, would launch a merciless campaign against AKD and the NPP. AKD and the NPP must be ready for such a situation. In such a case, the fight would be brutal and without mercy. Organization, organization and organization matters only then. Whoever has the edge in organization will be the victor.

*The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com