by

Sathya Liyanasuriya

The political fallout from the impeachment crisis has affected not only the ruling United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) but also the main opposition party, the United National Party (UNP) as well and its ‘former’ deputy leader Sajith Premadasa appears to be an unfortunate victim.

J. R. Jayewardene did not hesitate to elevate Premadasa (Snr.) to the premiership which the latter used as a stepping stone to the Presidency. However, he carried the scars of his travails within the UNP in to high office which led him to demote the likes of Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake.
That led to an impeachment of a different kind-against the President-and ironically, among the few top stalwarts of the UNP who stood alongside with Premadasa (Snr.) at that time was Wickremesinghe whose bete noire today is Sajith Premadasa.

Premadasa (Snr.) may have emerged from modest beginnings but Sajith Premadasa, now 46, has had a more privileged upbringing. That is because his father was Prime Minister for most of his formative years in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

For many years now, the UNP has been in a crisis over its leadership. Party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe continues to wear that mantle and it is an open secret that Premadasa harbours ambitions of leading the UNP one day.

However, at the party’s last election in December 2011, Premadasa chose to fight Wickremesinghe by proxy, putting forward Karu Jayasuriya for the leadership and contesting the deputy leadership slot himself. Jayasuriya was defeated but Premadasa won in an election marred by violence.
Since then, Wickremesinghe has marginalised those from the Premadasa camp. Late last year, the party’s Working Committee, packed with the leader’s loyalists, did away with annual elections, anointed Wickremesinghe as the leader for the next six years and allowed him to choose his deputy.

This week, Wickremesinghe “postponed” appointing Premadasa as his deputy while re-appointing all other key party officials to their posts. Also lost was Premadasa’s membership of the influential Working Committee. This has given rise to speculation that the party leader is going for the jugular.
While Sajith Premadasa may not deserve such short shrift from his own party, step-motherly treatment was nothing new to his father, Ranasinghe Premadasa. Premadasa (Snr.) rose through the ranks of the UNP when the party had an elitist image and was branded the Uncle Nephew Party.

Premadasa schooled initially at St. Thomas’ Preparatory School and Royal College from where he left for the United Kingdom and enrolled at Millhill School in London. He then read for a degree in economics, international relations and political science at the London School of Economics.

It was only a dozen years ago that Sajith Premadasa entered national politics, topping the UNP list from the Hambantota district at the 2000 general election. That was seven years after his father was brutally assassinated on May Day by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Premadasa opted to enter Parliament from Hambantota, a bastion of the Rajapaksas and the Sri Lanka Freedom party (SLFP) instead of from the Colombo Central electorate nursed for decades by his late father, where he would have had ready acceptance.As the UNP languished in the opposition since 2004 after the masses were disenchanted with the ceasefire agreements entered into with the LTTE, there have been growing calls for Wickremesinghe to quit and Premadasa has emerged as his possible and likely successor.

Premadasa has responded by publicly criticising Wickremesinghe’s leadership. A ‘Premadasa’ faction of the UNP gradually emerged consisting of a group that openly called for Wickremesinghe’s ouster. This has invited a plethora of disciplinary inquiries and legal battles and the UNP is no closer to unity.
Certain media establishments have also opted to characterize Wickremesinghe as weak and vacillating while promoting Premadasa. To be fair, Wickremesinghe has rarely publicly criticised Premadasa and the latter’s critics argue that public criticism of the party leader can only harm the UNP.

Wickremesinghe though may have missed a golden opportunity to corner the UPFA during the impeachment crisis. While Premadasa called for assertive action Wickremesinghe was half-hearted in his protests and even supported the government in its stance that ‘Parliament was supreme’.
As the impeachment drama reached its denouement with the government having its way and neither the opposition nor Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake even being allowed to have its say, it became obvious that Wickremesinghe’s tactics played into the hands of President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Old hands in the UNP say that this was an opening-just as much as the extension of the life of Parliament in 1975 by Sirima Bandaranaike was an excuse for J. R. Jayewardene to launch a ‘satyagraha’ campaign-to take to the streets against the dictatorial tendencies of the government.

The latest twist to this saga is the ‘postponing’ of Premadasa’s re-appointment as deputy leader. Premadasa has responded saying that ‘those who cling to positions without fulfilling their responsibilities must go’-a barb most would interpret as thinly veiled criticism of Wickremesinghe.

Premadasa is a generation younger than Wickremesinghe and can therefore afford to wait. The ideal scenario would be for Wickremesinghe and Premadasa to bury the hatchet and take the UNP forward. This is easier said than done.

For this to become a reality, Wickremesinghe would have to cease purging Premadasa loyalists from their positions in the party and give Premadasa his due place. Premadasa in turn would have to submit to Wickremesinghe’s authority instead of questioning it at every turn.

Such a scenario is now as distant as it was during the height of the UNP’s leadership crisis in late 2011. This is unfortunate not only for Wickremesinghe, Premadasa and the UNP but also for the country as the government is likely to engage in more transgressions of an authoritarian nature.COURTESY:DAILY MIRROR