{"id":208461,"date":"2020-03-07T13:08:09","date_gmt":"2020-03-07T07:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=208461"},"modified":"2020-03-10T15:03:25","modified_gmt":"2020-03-10T09:33:25","slug":"big-match-unp-vs-unp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/big-match-unp-vs-unp\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Match: UNP Vs UNP"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Uditha Devapriya<\/a> –<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Uditha Devapriya<\/p><\/div>\n

The tragedy with the UNP isn\u2019t that they are divided; the tragedy is that they seem to be in denial of the fact that they are divided. With the same breath with which he sends despatches and holds press conferences consoling the minds of UNP voters and reassuring them of unity, Akila Viraj Kariyawasam refers to the Sajith Premadasa faction\u2019s Samagi Jana Balavegaya as a constitutionally separate party. The irony of Akila reflecting on Gamini Dissanayake\u2019s exit from the UNP, \u2013 he was, like Sajith, Deputy Leader of the UNP at the time \u2013 and the travails of separate parties gaining a victory for themselves at the expense of the support of the party leaders, wouldn\u2019t have been lost on party members and supporters even if Gamini\u2019s own son wasn\u2019t right there, beside Akila, but it was made all the more evident when Naveen himself stated that they didn\u2019t want to gamble their political future on a party that\u2019s still not legally recognised<\/a>. It\u2019s the equivalent of Sirisena Cooray denying the legality of Naveen\u2019s father\u2019s alliance at a press conference during Sajith\u2019s father\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n

The farce doesn\u2019t stop there. After reassuring voters that they have Premadasa as their prime ministerial candidate, the Ranil faction desperately seeks Karu Jayasuriya and offers him the post instead. Karu, being saner than most of those who have membership in the UNP, refuses but hints that he\u2019d consider it if the two factions reconcile<\/a>. In other words, he hasn\u2019t given up either. Meanwhile, Sajith Premadasa \u2013 still referring to himself in the third person \u2013 claims that the government is stalling the opposition. This, of course, is a more polite way of saying that the Ranil faction have struck a deal with Gotabaya, a point that gained traction in the lead up to the presidential polls and is now being revived, one can only assume, to try and jettison the likes of Akila Viraj, Naveen, and the much reviled Ravi Karunanayake, the latter of whom holds on to that swan symbol without permitting its use by the Premadasa faction like a baby holds on to his toys. Vajira Abeywardena, meanwhile, hints that he hopes Premadasa will \u201clook after him\u201d once the elections are done, while Harsha de Silva is contemplating on leaving the party and politics. Only Eran Wickremaratne has the courage to stand up and defy the government, but all he can muster is a series of accusations against CID officials that, as Malinda Seneviratne has noted<\/a>, is a case of pots calling kettles black.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too late for the factions to reconcile. Elections are just weeks away. The SLPP has handed over its party symbol and logo and the UNP is fighting over whether they ought to go with an elephant, a swan, or a heart. If they go with the elephant, they have to play second fiddle to Ranil\u2019s faction; if they go with the swan, they will have to play pandu<\/i> with Karunanayake; if they go with the heart, they can say they are free of both Ranil and Karunanayake, but they will be without any significant support from the party elders. I see Kariyawasam has pointed out that those going with the Premadasa faction risk losing their nomination. If one considers how the Pohottuwa, facing a similar imbroglio with the SLFP years ago, showed the latter the finger and went ahead anyway without even a by your leave, and still won it at the polls, one would realise how different the destinies of the parties are: the Pohottuwa ripping the SLFP to shreds, and the SJV playing hard to get with the UNP.<\/p>\n

No one seems to be asking the only question that matters as of now: why is the Ranil faction, faced with the possibility of electoral extinction, still outlawing the Premadasa faction? What is there in their faction that is not there in the Premadasa faction? Are they afraid they\u2019ll lose their base \u2013 the Colombo middle and upper middle class, who by default are transfixed on the enduring myth that is Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s charisma and charm \u2013 and if so do they think they can avert that by alienating a faction of the party which still commands a sizeable chunk of voters from elsewhere? Do they think Colombo is Sri Lanka, so they can\u2019t afford to go on and with a person who is summoning the spectre of populist nationalism the UNP unleashed, once upon a time, in that person\u2019s father\u2019s presidency?<\/p>\n

If the Ranil faction threaten an internal purge \u2013 and the removal of key Sajith allies from the Working Committee shows that they are not unwilling to do so \u2013 they will find that they are left with parliamentarians whose support among the people is diminishing. This is not to say or to suggest that the Premadasa faction gets off the hook here \u2013 by not just defying the authority of Ranil Wickremesinghe but also hurling insults at him, and spreading fake news about the Working Committee and their faction being officially accepted by the party, they are as guilty of disrupting unity as their rivals \u2013 but there\u2019s a larger stake here, larger certainly than the future of a party or a faction, and that\u2019s the future of a viable opposition which is not only critical of the government but also responsive to the call of the people outside what the irrepressible Razeen Sally calls \u201cColombo\u2019s chattering classes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sitting beside Kariyawasam were Naveen Dissanayake and Daya Gamage. It\u2019s surprising that both Palitha Rangebandara and Palitha Thewarapperuma \u2013 especially the latter, given his anti-establishment antics \u2013 have decided as of now to side with Ranil Wickremesinghe. If all these people are put in together, and if we are to account for snide references to dealmakers and wheeler dealers among them made by, who else, the Premadasa faction, all you get is one sorry mess of a party establishment. Sajith Premadasa may have inflated his own popularity, and his cohorts may be clinging for dear life on him, yet this does not and should not deny the point that the fury of the people is directed less at the Premadasists than at the Ranilistas. Middle class professionals, government workers, the suburban youth: these are the segments Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his Viyath Maga Eliya troupe targeted and got, while both Ranil and Sajith were busy courting the minority and the Colombo vote, and these are the segments that Sajith, with his unenviable blend of frenzied onstage populism<\/a> and eloquent if not loquacious conference hall decorum<\/a>, is best equipped to grabbing from Gotabaya.<\/p>\n

Just as Gotabaya cannot match Sajith for the fleeting frenzied sensation he is, Sajith cannot match Gotabaya for the charismatic imposing figure he is. The two are different, but they can very well target the same milieus: something that those in Ranil\u2019s faction will not be able to do. You may argue, as most pro-Ranil commentators do, that Sajith failed to drum up enough support for the UNP at the presidential polls and he was more concerned with distancing his troupe from Sirikotha, but the hurdles he was up against \u2013 hurdles which he is up against yet again now \u2013 were so insurmountable; to appreciate the magnitude of the obstacles he had to cross and couldn\u2019t, consider that they were much higher than what Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Joint Opposition, and the Pohottuwa had to face from the SLFP. Sirisena, who now compares himself to an eagle \u2013 is he toying with the idea of an eagle as the symbol of his next political misadventure? \u2013 tripped Mahinda just once, and that was at the August 2015 polls. After that, though he was very much against the SLPP calling the shots in the party, he realised that he and his party would be reduced to rubble unless they tied up with the monolithic Pohottuwa. By contrast, the UNP still has enough firepower to quell the aspirations of the Sajith faction, even with Rauf Hakeem, Rishad Bathiudeen, and Patali Champika Ranawaka standing side by side and singing hosannas with Sajith Premadasa.<\/p>\n

So the UNP will continue to do what it has always done. Bully the rival and his supporters. My guess is that this will accelerate if not sharpen the attempts of the Premadasa faction at emulating Gotabaya\u2019s pandering to Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and populism. With the elders continually dragging Sajith\u2019s away from an alliance between the two rivals, what more can you expect? It\u2019s true they haven\u2019t parted officially from one another, and yet, to the world at large, they have. It\u2019s like a divorce without the settlement: you have only an inkling of a hope that they\u2019ll get together again. By alienating the majority who are with Sajith, the elders will only drum up popular support for their rivals. This will in itself certainly not be enough to upend the popularity the current government enjoys \u2013 my prediction is that the UNP will fall down to a position not dissimilar to that of the SLFP in the February 2018 polls, even if the Ranil-Sajith rift is resolved \u2013 but it will be enough to dissipate what little support the Reid Avenue Brigade in Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s faction has. It\u2019s a different kind of Big Match we\u2019re seeing here: one faction of a College versus another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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