The Case For (And Against) Anura Kumara Dissanayake

By Pramod Kandanarachchi –

2023 has arrived.

The prior year marked by #Gotagohome ended with #homecomingofRanil. The ‘aragalaya’ somehow fizzled away despite the mile-high hopes of systems change alone with the many miles long fuel lines. None of those may not have been fully extinguished. Aragalaya, aspirations of a systems change, and fuel lines may be dormant for now, but may erupt in an unexpected place and time with ferocity not seen or imagined ever before.

We may have a couple of elections in this year and the Presidential election in 2024. So, it would be wise to take stock of the state of the State including a potential new boss of the town, Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The objectives of this note are to layout the current situation of Sri Lanka in coherent terms, understand the political forces and personalities vying for power as precisely as possible and offer an unbiased review (if such a thing is feasible in a political commentary) of Anura Kumara Dissanayake as a probable leader of our country in near future.

The current state of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka

We do not need a complicated economic, political, cultural discourse to fully describe the situation. In other words, big words such as trade deficit, balance of payments, good-governance, constitutional amendments, foreign reserves, etc. are not necessary. Let’s just boil it down by looking at the country as one big extended family comprising of grandfathers, grandmothers, father, mother, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunties, cats, dogs, cows, etc.

Not all was well always, but they somehow managed with a small paddy-field, coconut and tea estates, eldest sister toiling in Middle East, another sister working in an apparel factory and a younger brother working as a tourist guide. The elders—grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunties—were spendthrifts, thieves, and party animals in addition to being idiots for a long time so they augmented their income by borrowing money from anybody who would lend. They stole, spent, and partied like buffoons on the borrowed money too. Yes, they even killed many cash Cows the family once owned.

One day an epidemic stopped the tourists coming to the village that made the younger brother unemployed and made the life of the elder sister working in Middle East harder. To make matters worse she started flirting and sending money through her Pakistani friend. His name is Undiyal. This dried up few dollars they had in the bank.

Some other clowns claiming to be wise and answering to the name ‘Viyathmaga’ convinced the father (who used to be liked and respected because he beat up a gangster threatening the family) to fertilize the fields with some feces from China instead of Urea at this very perilous point. That sealed the fate of the small Paddy Field, Coconut, and the Tea estates.

One day all of them woke up in a country that was bankrupt!

Political forces and personalities vying for power

Politics and politicians are not static entities. Both are in a constant state of flux. It appears that in Sri Lanka the policies, behaviors and particularly allegiances of lawmakers are peculiarly fluid. It maybe easier to describe the color of a Chameleon than to define the political forces and personalities operating in our beloved motherland.

The main players who are aiming to rule over us (or lord over us) are: Ranil, Sajith, Namal and Anura. And don’t forget Maithripala Sirisena. Obviously, as we insinuated before, the politics is an uncertain game—just like Cricket—so the field is still widely open. Since we are talking about only probabilities and not certainties, let’s assume Namal would not enter the prey and supports Ranil. This calculus can change in a heartbeat. As soon as the Rajapaksa fraternity agrees that they have a fighting chance to the royalty again, President Wickramesinghe will be dumped in a heartbeat and relegated to the dustbin of history (maybe back to the eternal leadership of UNP). All those who were attracted to him like moths to a flame will bend their knees and spines to Namal Rajapaksa and kiss his ring(s) and yell… Down with the Traitor & the Bank Robber!!!

The main contender President Ranil Wickramesinghe wants to continue to be heading the State. He is also the most formidable. The common sentiment that he is a leader without popular support cannot be further from the truth. We need to do some arithmetic to understand this. From where would he draw support? He is now the de-facto leader of Pohottuwa that had about 50% vote-bank in the last election. We don’t know how much of that support still exists but most of them will vote for him for various reasons. SJB garnered about 25% and that is mainly UNP votes not because they loved Sajith more, but they thought Ranil could never win. Since he has proven them wrong most UNPers may come back home.

Then there are about 20% of Tamil and Moslem voters who have relatively positive feelings about President Wickremesinghe because to his credit, although he can be called many names—some worse than others—he is not a Racist.

Ranil derives his vote count from a base of about 90% of the population. No President or a Prime Minister of post-independent Sri Lanka had such potentiality although nobody is saying this a certainty. This, in no way, means he has a vote bank of such magnitude. But his drinking well is humongous. Sajith is also a main contender by default because he is the Leader of Opposition. Anura has the herculean task of building up from 3%.

So why bother? What is wrong with continuing with the current President? He is well experienced, arguably smart, can converse well with English speaking creditors, least racist, most liberal, and extremely perseverant amongst all of them, isn’t he?

To answer these questions, we must go back to simplicity—to the predicament of our extended family called Sri Lanka.

After the family went bankrupt the younger brothers and sisters rebelled and chased away the once beloved father, and loudly demanded a system change. In response elders tried to cane them first and when it backfired found a stepfather who was persistently rejected by the whole family in the past.

How did the stepfather pull this off? The answer is Symbiosis among culprits. In return for the power for himself, Ranil gave some of the elders the protection from the wrath of the family and gave perks and positions to others. Then this symbiosis metamorphosed rather quickly to one monstrous creature. This super-parasite they created is feeding on the whole family and growing at an alarming rate.

How is this parasitic creature going to heal our poor family? BTW isn’t it an oxymoron for a parasite to be a doctor?

It first blamed the younger brothers and sisters for the predicament of the family, beat them, and locked them up. Then they are begging for a big loan from somebody to bail them out while pleading with the creditors to go easy with the family. Meanwhile they are using the money saved by not paying the loans to provide meagre support for the family to make them content while spending a colossal sum on themselves—the big parasite. They will send another sister to Middle East. They will make a cannabis plantation out of the paddy field that is now barren. They will sell whatever is left from the family heirloom. They will open a small casino behind the house calling it tourism promotion. Last but not least, they will make the youngest daughter a sex worker calling it a ‘Night Economy’.

Admittedly this is hyperbole and innuendo. There are countries that had field tested all of these—locking up the dissidents to making the poor sell their bodies—and still have made their countries great. So, this approach may work. If you are okay with this path, then there is no need to read further. You don’t need to feel bad thinking we are better than that.

Maybe we are not.

But in case you yearn for something better…

The case for (and against) Anura Kumara Dissanayake

A few days ago, something unusual happened. After explaining his take about the local government elections, AKD waited for questions from the journalists. There were none. Zilch. Nada. Why? There is no other honest explanation other than that he made his case as clearly as humanly possible. And everybody knew that there is no way they can ask any gotcha questions from this man.

Articulation is his main strength.

The guy can talk the talk. But can he walk the walk? His detractors can make a reasonable case against him that those who talk well typically don’t work well. We don’t know because he was never given the opportunity. He demonstrates a precise understanding of the present economic, political, cultural, and social conditions of Sri Lanka. His political front NPP has been going around the country and introducing their solutions for a myriad of issues. Those seem reasonable even though vague.

The main problem with being the leader of JVP is JVP. There are two main issues with his party: One is their violent history. No amount of explaining would erase that. An unequivocal apology may do, but that is not forthcoming. In their defense, JVP has learnt the lessons and managed to be in the mainstream politics for over thirty years. Second is their Marxist ideology that is proven to be a failed system in each and every country that tried it. They are trying to address this and embrace free market economy—but half-heartedly. He is trying to show that they are different now by associating with an ensemble of an educated crowd. But would that be the so called Viyathmaga-2?

What does AKD truly believe? Align with China in the misguided belief that Chaina will somehow help them because once they were Maoist in 1965? This may nevertheless help since China is a capitalist economic superpower. But would he also try to align with Russia? That would be stupid and disastrous. Would his agricultural policy include some collective farming to increase productivity? That could also be disastrous just like organic farming. Does he still believe increased government control of the markets?

All of these are good questions that deserve clear answers.

A criticism that is unjustified of JVP, for that matter all Marxist parties throughout Si Lankan post independence history, is that their values and behaviors are inconsistent with the Sri Lankan culture based on Buddhist heritage. The origin of such criticism dates back to inaccurately paraphrased quote from Karl Marx “religion is the opiate of the masses”. Evidently opium was not illegal at that time and thought of largely as medicinal. Therefore, Karl Marx may even had said that with a positive role religion can play in an exploitative society in mind (see David R. Rapke, Political processes & Rhetoric, 2015). Interestingly, those who yell the loudest for cultural purity (see Honorable Wimal Weerawansa et al) are mostly mute about the attempts to actually legalize opium (I am not saying that is a bad idea).

We all know about the sleezy politicians all over the world misusing the cultural sensitivities for their advantage. A significant portion of the populace also has this misconception that the culture is a static entity. All living cultures change albeit slowly. Unfortunately, many politicians try to move our culture backwards and AKD is definitely not one of them.

Probably the Achilles-heel of JVP is none of the above but their student activists, more accurately the University student activists. This may sound a contentious statement to some. This is in no way condoning the current subjugation of student leaders by Ranil/Dinesh government. But most people do not have a very affectionate feelings about various student protests. AKD would be well served if he allows his former comrade Kumar Gunarathnam in the Frontline Socialist Party to take the full ownership of the vociferous undergraduates.

This may not be the last chance to save our economy or democracy as they always say, but upcoming Local Government elections will show us who our future leaders would be. If it takes the typical historical pattern, Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa’s SJB will take the lead. Former President Maithripala Sirisena may surprise us with a good showing. Current President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP may make a comeback. It is quite likely that former President Mahinda Rajapakse will prove that a significant segment of the electorate still loves him for ending the war.

Or Anura Kumara Dissanayake (commonly known as AKD), affectionately addressed as Anuraiya, and derisively called Lapaya) may make history!

While burdened with all of the negatives as the leader of an organization that is seriously flawed both in their ideology and their history (i.e., with warts and all—some literally and some figuratively) can he achieve this feat?

I am rooting for him.

What about you?

*Pramod Kandanarachchi lives in Brecksville, Ohio in the United States and has been a teacher and a researcher in the field of Chemistry. He occasionally explores into other interests such a fiction writing, poetry & book reviews.

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