Ranil Wickremesinghe’s quest to bring ‘stability’ to Sri Lanka

1 August 2022

Wednesday, 20 July marked the culmination of simmering economic and political unrest in Sri Lanka, as Sri Lankan parliamentarians cast their secret ballots for the next president of Sri Lanka in favour of Ranil Wickremesinghe. After months of Janatha Aragalaya protests against former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his policies, the parliament’s selection of Wickremesinghe — previously appointed as Rajapaksa’s prime minister in May — seemed to blatantly disregard widespread public sentiment against the previous government. Less than two weeks before the vote, protestors broke into Wickremesinghe’s house and set it ablaze. For a population that is justifiably angry about months of waiting in fuel queues, enduring multi-hour power cuts, and struggling to afford basic food and medicines, Wickremesinghe’s presidential victory appeared to be yet another obstacle in bringing Sri Lanka out of its current crisis.

Supporters of the six-time prime minister and some analysts have welcomed Ranil Wickremesinghe’s election as an opportunity to regain economic and political stability in Sri Lanka. However, what does that ‘stability’ entail? For many in Sri Lanka, it is becoming increasingly clear that the new government cannot simply engage with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and external creditors to improve the island’s financial situation. ‘Stability’ for Sri Lanka has long come at the cost of corruption by political elites, consolidation of power at the executive level, and the failure to prosecute war crimes from the government and military — all of which contributed to the policy decisions liable for the Sri Lankan economy’s collapse. Ranil Wickremesinghe, a seasoned political veteran and active participant in Sri Lanka’s ‘oppressive stability’, seems unlikely to implement the structural political change needed to address the country’s original governance failures responsible for the crisis in the first place.

Wickremesinghe and Sri Lanka’s oppressive stability

Though Wickremesinghe’s urban, elite, and Western-oriented outlook is in sharp contrast to the Rajapaksas’ brazen embrace of traditional Sinhala Buddhist nationalism, he has also participated in Sri Lanka’s cycles of illiberal politics. During his previous stints as prime minister, he — like the Rajapaksas — has also been accused of ordering the detention and torture of political opponents and of failing to follow through with transitional justice measures against those accused of war crimes during Sri Lanka’s twenty-six-year civil war. Even Wickremesinghe’s clean economic record remains in question after his alleged 2015 involvement in an insider trading scam at the Sri Lankan Central Bank, which ultimately indicted his childhood friend, former Central Bank Governor Arjun Mahendran. While Wickremesinghe has come into power on successive promises of reform and good governance, he has failed to ever champion any real change to the Sri Lankan political system, ultimately setting Sri Lanka up for the Rajapaksas’ governance failures.

Sri Lanka’s new government should focus less on restoring its previous ‘stability’ and do everything in its power to build a new governance system to prevent future policy failures and reflect the protestors’ demands.

Since becoming president just over a week ago, Wickremesinghe has immediately enacted measures (under the guise of restoring ‘stability’) that have further consolidated his presidential power and seem antithetical to restructuring the political system that created the initial economic crisis. Upon his designation as interim president, Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency in response to the continuing protests — a move invoked frequently throughout Sri Lanka’s history that has provided presidents with sweeping powers to override existing checks and balances and crackdown on dissent without lawful recourse. In the days after the Parliament elected Wickremesinghe, the new president launched “a joint operation involving the military, police, and police special forces” to forcibly disperse peaceful protestors near the presidential secretariat in Colombo, leading to mass injuries and arrests. In replicating the same authoritarian measures as the previous Rajapaksa government, Wickremesinghe risks creating more instability, exacerbating violence, and exploiting the power of the executive presidency to undermine valid public concerns about his new policies.

What is required for ‘stability’ going forward?

There is no question that Wickremesinghe is eager and willing to do anything to secure an IMF bailout and to pass financial reforms that will put Sri Lanka on the path to economic recovery. However, while he aims to ‘stabilise’ Sri Lanka in the interim, that will not be enough to prevent the island from falling into another economic — and political — catastrophe further down the line. The new president must simultaneously push for structural political change that fosters more inclusive governance, while averting the possibility of another crisis in the future, at the same time as restoring the economic and political livelihoods of Sri Lankans.

The new Wickremesinghe administration must first reverse the trend of authoritarianism and strengthened presidential powers. Although Wickremesinghe has endorsed implementing the 21st Amendment — which would give the Parliament more authority over the executive — parliamentarians have also shown their desire to preserve the status quo over resolving the crisis. For instance, Parliament has prioritised passing laws on providing new houses for members who lost theirs during the protests rather than distributing adequate compensation for those most impacted by the economic crisis, such as farmers. Other laws, such as the Prevention Against Terrorism Act, have enabled the government and security forces to suppress dissent without due process; dissent that is needed more than ever to inform the new government on how to proceed. Though President Wickremesinghe has now pledged to allow peaceful protests to take place, he has simultaneously labelled the protestors as “fascists” and continued to arrest activists associated with the Janatha Aragalaya protests.

Central to Sri Lanka’s current dilemma is also the proliferation of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism, which was incorporated into the country’s institutional structure after the end of the civil war and enabled the rise of the Rajapaksa family. Tamils and Muslims have suffered disproportionately from the economic crisis but have not had the opportunity to protest in the same manner as their Sinhala counterparts. Additionally, Sri Lanka’s decades-long nationalist agenda has contributed to overspending on an increased military presence in the North and the East, which has further displaced and curtailed the rights of ethnoreligious minorities. Wickremesinghe, who has a tenuous track record in supporting ethnic reconciliation efforts, seems unlikely to incorporate the grievances of Tamils and Muslims in his reform efforts. It remains unclear if the Janatha Aragalaya protests can turn the tide of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism that enabled the Rajapaksas to assume power with a supermajority merely two years ago.

If Ranil Wickremesinghe wants to take Sri Lanka out of the current crisis, he must abandon politics as usual. This possibility will ultimately depend on collective altruism from Wickremesinghe and his new government to relinquish their vested financial and political interests to build a new governance system, which seems unlikely for the time being. With an unfolding humanitarian disaster that threatens increased starvation for a majority of its population, Sri Lanka’s new government should focus less on restoring its previous ‘stability’ and do everything in its power to build a new governance system to prevent future policy failures and reflect the protestors’ demands.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Isha Gupta is a Research Assistant at the Stimson Centre’s South Asia Program and Deputy Editor of South Asian Voices. Image credit: F lickr/Nazly Ahmed.