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Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake

Not even the smoke screen mounted by a friendly media can conceal the reality of the UNPs intra-party crisis. To all appearances the country's second oldest political party seems to be tearing itself apart in the public gaze.

While this might be happy news to the UNP's rivals the fact that it is the main opposition party and in Westminster parlance the government in waiting should create concern.

The most obvious reason for the UNP's torment is the successive defeats which Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe as its leader has suffered in recent times.

The dissident group which is calling for his head seems to feel that a new style of leadership is necessary. But the UNP's tragedy is that a combination of factors has led to the paucity of leadership material. First there was the passing of the old guard and then the LTTE's elimination of such leaders as President Premadasa and Gamini Dissanayake.

The irony is that those who are calling for Mr. Wickremesinghe's resignation are themselves new recruits to the party which itself points to a certain poverty at the leadership levels of the UNP. The other irony bedeviling the party is that it has to find a substitute for Mr. Wickremesinghe in the same image has President Mahinda Rajapakse, who curiously enough has been cast by the international media and its local allies as a 'Sinhala hardliner'.

The UNP after all is the party of the liberal bourgeoisie but it would appear that the party is not happy with the impeccable western bourgeois credentials of Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The main criticism levelled against him by his political opponents of the SLFP and the Left is that as a product of the Colombo upper-middle class he is alienated from the people and has no emotional rapport with them. The stand of the dissident UNPers is also the same, which would suggest that the root of the problem is not political but cultural.

Given the paucity of leadership material, the person who is projected as the alternative leader is Mr. Karu Jayasuriya who would appear to the UNP dissidents as a more plausible leader of the party in opposition to Mr. Rajapakse.

Mr. Jayasuriya with his education at Ananda College and his attire of the national dress seems on the face of it to have the same credentials as the President but it must not be forgotten that he himself comes from a business background and basically has the attitudes of an entrepreneur.

Beginning life as an Executive at C. W. Mackie and Company Ltd Mr. Jayasuriya later struck out on his own in the footwear industry and was appointed Ambassador to Germany by President Premadasa. He came into active politics as the Mayor of Colombo and became a MP of the Gampaha District and the Deputy Leader of the party during Mr. Wickremesinghe's regime as party leader.

It is unclear whether Mr. Jayasuriya as the would be leader of the UNP will envisage any radical orientation of the party's policy on the economy and society.

It is difficult to envisage any such change given the UNP's history and roots as the party of property. Particularly with the advent of the new Government which is seeking to capture the social democratic middle ground the pitch will be queered to any such orientation.

Historically, the UNP was the party of the Senanayakes, father and son, who were basically cast in the old patriarchal mould. Although they were cosmopolitan, their rootedness in the village ensured that they would not lose the common touch. However with their passing, and the advent of President Jayewardene as the party leader, the UNP was taken in a different direction.

Although there might have been differences within the party about the new direction in which the President Jayewardene carried the UNP as demonstrated for example by the criticism of the party by the late Mr. M. D. H. Jayawardena and the internal revolt initiated later against President Premadasa by Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake these were blunted, suppressed or concealed by the then prevailing authoritarian style of leadership.

What the present differences within the UNP suggests is that this authoritarian type of leadership is no longer holding. In that sense, it is a moot point whether a difference of leader will be the remedy for the party's travails.

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