The 2024 Presidential election effectively neutralised the most potent Opposition force in the country. The NPP (and its earlier incarnation the go-it-alone JVP) may not have had significant representation in Parliament. But it wasn’t a secret that the JVP as an oppositional force was potent, perhaps far more feared than the rather prosaic SJB, which was in a cosy comfort-zone in the Opposition ranks compared to the pugnacious JVP, the effective junior partner in recent anti-Government ranks.
Now, the party that gets under the skin of orthodox and prosaic political forces which hogged the show and were always in power, is in power themselves. The permanently strong three-MP Opposition has been taken out of the opposition equation, by virtue of being the Government.
While the JVP/NPP gets used to being in Government, the Opposition is without one of its most potent disruptive forces. The NPP has, in every sense, disrupted the Sri Lankan political model, the way a start-up Apple Inc. disrupted giant IBM in the 70s, capturing the personal computer market.
But the Opposition would have to re-invent itself. Who is going to light those little fires that slow-burn under the feet of comfortably ensconced rulers? The current opposition forces are far from being either organised or confident.
It’s not merely the drubbing at the Presidential election. It could be bluntly said that Sajith Premadasa, the putative Leader of the Opposition is now past his sell by date. Two defeats at successive Presidential elections would be curtains for any politician in any other part of the world.
CONFINES
Premadasa survives for now, particularly because there is a General Election and it is too late to change the jockey mid-race. There is almost no chance that Premadasa would end up as Prime Minister, even though he has declared himself the Prime Ministerial candidate of the SJB. But, hope fills eternally in the human breast as they say …
Even in this country, where politicians are notoriously ambitious but abjectly clumsy in the way they get about realising those ambitions, it’s probably true to say that Premadasa’s goose is cooked. He thought two Presidential elections were his to lose because what else can Sajith Premadasa be other than a shoo in, according to Sajith Premadasa? But that rocket crashed and burned no sooner it was launched, on both occasions.
Now the Opposition virtually needs to re-invent itself. But the Opposition parties are rather orthodox and orthodox machine politics is now considered completely outdated and intolerable.
Said another way, those seeking to re-invent Opposition politics this late in 2024, are all of the conventional mould. Most of them don’t have a creative bone in their body to come up with something novel, within those fusty Opposition party confines. Premadasa represents that fast-aging malaise. In most other democracies if politicians repeatedly fail, there is a quick succession stakes. Even if the succession stakes produce no one of any consequence, the grandees in those parties are wedded to the process and go through with it.
There is no such process in Sri Lanka. Most of the folk who want to succeed a failing or failed leader are either gun shy or over ambitious. Those who are gun shy don’t deserve to succeed. Those who are over-ambitious self-immolate fast because they have neither the patience or the guile.
Nevertheless, this would be a good time to make an assessment of the career of Sajith Premadasa. He seems to suffer from a form of political Asperger’s. This is not to disparage anyone with Asperger’s syndrome. Political Asperger’s is different from the Autism like condition. Political Asperger’s is a form of disconnected-ness and being spaced out in important situations.
Mr. Premadasa seems most of the time to exist in his own bubble. He seems sometimes to possess something like a reversely-engaging forward gear. There also seems to be an assumption he makes that he is qualified to be President because he is a man of the people, who provides for the downtrodden as if he is a benevolent guardian deity.
It’s not kind, but naïveté is the best word to describe that kind of mindset and that general approach to statecraft. To some extent, his party has carried him aloft as the leader-in-waiting, instead of him shouldering the party’s burden as its numero uno.
DOLDRUMS
Of course, there is an election on the cards. Theoretically, Premadasa can win. It’s why he has declared himself the Prime Ministerial candidate. But why does the word hubris come to mind? Does he think he can spring back and take control of the situation now that he lost the Presidential election by 1.3 million votes?
Meanwhile, it appears his party’s nomination lists and the National List has led to a mini-implosion. Champika Ranawaka has left in a huff and said Premadasa reneged on a deal with him. Several others such as Ajith Mannaperuma are saying the same. Of course with a loss, such as the recent Presidential election defeat, most parties descend into disarray and it’s nothing new.
But the SJB’s problems are more chronic. For long, its performances have been lacklustre. Of course, it’s difficult to put lustre into anything when people blame you too for the economic meltdown. Premadasa has been putting his hand up and saying, “but what do I have to do with the economic meltdown?”.
But he and his team — which was touted more than him at the concluded Presidential election campaign — just couldn’t do anything to dispel that notion that had taken hold, that the SJB was somehow a stakeholder in the economic doldrums. Some things just cannot be changed. But, a more clear-headed leadership would have seen the writing on the wall and deployed a corrective strategy.
Perhaps, an extraordinarily gifted leader is necessary to clear the anger people harbour towards conventional political parties, due to the economic meltdown and the consequent intolerable living conditions that ensued. But extraordinarily gifted, Sajith Premadasa simply is not. He barely qualifies as ordinary, in terms of political skill so how does he do extraordinary? It’s the problem the current Opposition has — all of them in fact — including former President Ranil Wickremesinghe and the others while not even counting the SLPP which constituted the former Government, now led by Namal Rajapaksa, from a party currently so completely in the doghouse.
How does such an Opposition wake up, shake off its wounded image and begin to be a force to reckon with at least in the remotest sense? It appears at this moment that even time — a couple of election cycles — wouldn’t be able to do it. What the Opposition needs is an extraordinary figure who could engineer an against-odds comeback, and it could be safely said that there is none anywhere in sight. To that extent it is almost cruel to expect Premadasa to make the cut. But then if he is merely a caricature of what’s needed as an Opposition helmsman, the Opposition has a huge problem.
GEARED
What the Opposition needs to do is to — sort of — sit out this election and cut its losses, hoping it has a good chance of bouncing back on a later date. Instead, it has set itself up for another total loss of face by saying “We will form a Government,” meaning that a SJB Government would be in a cohabitation arrangement with President AKD.
If anyone believes this is possible, it is hubris times a thousand. There is no law against existing in a tiny Opposition bubble, but it is also pointless existing in a bubble knowing it would burst. It’s a lunge towards political suicide. It is better for the Opposition to make the best of this election and thereafter, charter its course by making radical changes. But the SJB in particular seems geared towards business as usual.
It’s very much in character. That way Premadasa & Co. are imperturbable in their bubble. They just lack the situational awareness it seems to comprehend exactly where they are and what’s going on around them. A classic case of political Asperger’s.
