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| Sunday, 6 June 2004 |
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| News Business Features Editorial
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Look yourself in the mirror Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake Whether it is agonizing or not, we now see attempts at reappraisals of the UNP's policies that led to its recent humiliating defeats. There is rising of criticism from within the ranks of the party that may not be snuffed out by the ruse of various reform committees that Ranil Wickremesinghe has adopted. Sajith Premadasa had the courage to say that his father, the late President Premadasa, could have performed better had he only given heed to some of the criticism made of his work and style. Sajith is today a prominent figure among the young turks of the UNP, seeking a change in the leadership, and also inner party democracy. There is the UNP's new national organiser, S.B.Dissanayake, the sakala banda from Hanguranketha with his rural mansion and all that, calling on the UNP to look at its own record and discover why it was routed at the last elections. One cannot help feeling that a major reason for that defeat was the party leadership luring Dissanayake himself to the party, with all the political baggage he was carrying at the time, much to the chagrin of senior and loyal party members and supporters. But Dissanayake is today its national organiser, with some unknown claim to be a master in the skill of winning elections, and he too wants the UNP to look at itself to discover the reasons for its fall. Realism does strike even the most unexpected persons at some time. It would have been useful if Dissanayake had told his political cross-over opportunist buddy, Mahinda Wijesekera, that he would be doing the party a great favour if, even now, if he carries out his pre-election pledge to drown himself in the Beira Lake if the JVP fared better than the UNP in the Matara district. The new minister in charge of ports, Mangala Samaraweera, who now controls the beira lake, would have been glad to use even the biggest crane in the port to pull this Kaluvara Mahinda out of the mud he would have been stuck and struggling for life in the beira lake. Very much like the mud, he usually thrives in, that has now stuck on the UNP too. Adding to the chorus of criticism of the UNP's policy and its leadership, we now have Hema Kumara Nanayakkara, a prominent member of the UNP in the Galle district, who gravitated to the party from the SLFP via the former Hela Urumaya of Tilak Karunaratne. Addressing the Galle district organisation of the UNP on the current problems of the party, Hema Kumara Nanayakkara had some very harsh words to say about the direction the party had been moving in the recent past. He even dared criticise what was seen as the Holy of Holies of the Ranil Wickremesinghe leadership, the programme of "Regaining Sri Lanka". "Regaining Sri Lanka", the much hyped up policy document of the UNP, had been praised by the World Bank, IMF and such organisations, and was also referred to at the Tokyo Aid conference in June 2002. During the time of the UNP's short governance, there was no end to the praise of "Regaining Sri Lanka" and its goals by the media, both State and private, that the party manipulated not so cleverly, as seen by the result of April 2. Yet, Nanayakkara saw nothing sacrosanct in "Regaining Sri Lanka" and said it had been drawn up by people who did not understand realities within Sri Lanka. He was particularly harsh, and in fact tore into shreds the section on agriculture in "Regaining Sri Lanka". A qualified agriculturist himself, with hands-on experience in family plantations too, Nanayakkara was emphatic in his statement that the entire section on agriculture in "Regaining Sri Lanka" had been written by people who did not have even a nodding acquaintance with the reality of agriculture and the problems of the cultivator. This reminded me of a description of Milinda Moragoda, no doubt one of the key resources persons for "Regaining Sri Lanka", by the JVP's Wimal Weerawansa. In his usual pithy manner Weerawansa saw Moragoda as a person so removed from Sri Lankan soil, to the extend that if he passed a paddy field and saw a scarecrow there, he would ask "Who is that man?" The question that has to be asked is why Nanayakkara was so vociferous in support of the UNP's policies, based on "Regaining Sri Lanka" in the past two years if he saw so many flaws in this basic policy document, while it was being criticised by the SLFP, JVP and many non-partisan professionals too? Was it blind and uncritical support of the party leader and its leadership, or was it that he read "Regaining Sri Lanka" only after the great fall of April? If it is the first reason, it is unpardonable, if it is the latter, there seems to be still some hope left for the UNP in a process of genuine reform. Sajith Premadasa, Hema Kumara Nanayakkara, Navin Dissanayake and others who see the need for serious reform may voice their sentiments. Yet the party leadership is keen to find ways of smothering the demand that has to emerge from all this criticism. The demand that the UNP change its leader, and the leadership style that he has adopted, of surrounding himself with friends who are even more distant than him from the pulse of the people, seems inevitable. While G.L. Peiris, incredible as he is, and some others will keep following the line of the leader, there is evidence that the changes Ranil Wickremesinghe has in mind are only meant to insulate him from threats emerging from within the party. The new general secretary of the party, its former treasurer, is even more removed from the people than Senerath Kapukotuwa was. The man who sought to mislead the people and lull the UNP into complacency when at the helm of Rupavahini and SLBC, Ganganath Dissanayake is once again appointed to a key organisational position in the party. The leader is building a wall around him that he believes will be impregnable by the emerging critics of his policy and style. What is needed for all in the UNP is to look oneself in the mirror, and see what went wrong. There is promise of good business for the mirror trade in the country if members of the UNP begin to seek a genuine change in the party. The mirrors will show them that blind following of the leader was the cause for the downfall of them all. |
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