EDITORIAL

Mind Over Matter

Until he became Prime Minister in 2001, few people saw Ranil Wickremesinghe as a strategist. Though he had been a loyal party member and minister for the previous two decades, the domination of Sri Lanka's post-Jayewardene political landscape by Ranasinghe Premadasa, Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake left Wickremesinghe, almost a generation younger, in the minds of many a poor third runner up. It was only when he lost the opposition leadership to Dissanayake by a mere three votes in 1994 that the nation woke up and decided Wickremesinghe was not a mere Colombo phenomenon but a political force to be reckoned with in his own right.

Sadly for all concerned, when Wickremesinghe did inherit the UNP's leadership, it was by default. Premadasa, Athulathmudali and Dissanayake had all fallen prey to the LTTE, and the party was broken and rudderless. Taking over the reins with all the enthusiasm he could muster, the new leader of the opposition seemed to have little stomach for his first stint of opposition politics. Seeking a bottom-up revival of the party, Wickremesinghe turned to revamping the grassroots party organisation, paying scant attention to Colombo's kingmakers. He also opted to let Chandrika Kumaratunga, now settled into government and the presidency apparently for life, a free run almost completely above opposition criticism.

It was the UNP itself that was spreading the rumour that the party would never win under Wickremesinghe, especially given the legendary levels of violence to which Kumaratunga had elevation the electoral process. Despite Kumaratunga having brought herself into ridicule as a result of the inefficiency and corruption of her regime, she was returned to office in 1999, and her party re-elected, albeit by a slenderer majority, in 2000. Once more, Wickremesinghe appeared resigned to his fate, and even allowed, despite much controversy, the new government to elect one of his party members, Anura Bandaranaike, as speaker. But the party's aggressive Assistant Leader, Gamini Atukorale, was fanning the fires of rebellion. Staying loyal to Wickremesinghe, Atukorale agitated for effective opposition, determined that the PA should be ousted forthwith. Smelling blood, Wickremesinghe finally took the lead, defeating the government, causing a massive defection from the PA's senior ranks and precipitating the 2001 election the UNF won by the slenderest of majorities.

And from the very outset, it is as a strategist that Wickremesinghe has shone. Taking under himself only the Policy Development and Implementation Ministry and chairmanship of the cabinet's economic policy subcommittee, the Premier has ensured that very little gets past him in the government without his personal nod. And having settled into the job, everyone is agreed that Wickremesinghe is a man transformed.

Displaying a remarkable breadth of reading and command of facts and precedents from across the world, and an uncanny memory for detail, the Prime Minister is in his element. He is one among only a handful of members of the cabinet who can be classed as 'thinkers,' able to see the big picture and calmly set about painting it. Wickremesinghe is in no hurry, and is plotting his strategy in the time frame of decades, not of years.

And it is not a lust for power alone that appears to drive the man. In recent months he has been talking of the need to ensure water availability for a population of 25 million by 2025, of a bridge between Sri Lanka and India and a massive diminution of government - initiatives that will take at least two decades to accomplish. That is also why from the very outset of the peace process, the Premier was careful to warn that this was a long-term strategy and not looking at quick fixes: establish peace, and let the politics evolve.

The pro-US stand to which Wickremesinghe has committed Sri Lanka has alarmed many. After all, the last time J.R. Jayewardene attempted anything along these lines, it led to a massive rebuke by India. Sri Lanka's support of the US at the Cancun trade negotiations, taken together with the Prime Minister's own acknowledgment of his understanding of the US's role in Iraq, was clearly like waving a red flag in front of the PA bull. In doing so however, Wickremesinghe was playing master politics along the lines popularised by Lee Kuan Yew, who throughout Singapore's development ensured not only that his country developed the closest trade links with the US, but that it did so also with the three giants that surround it: Malaysia, Indonesia and China, each with a mutually conflicting ideology.

The challenge before Sri Lanka is not as complex as that: it is a matter of industrial development and westward-looking trade and investment, while doing likewise with India. Taking the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord as his starting point, in his visit to Delhi last week, the Premier was able to win a signal victory for his government. In effect, India has expressed its willingness to assure Sri Lanka's territorial integrity and defence, while at the same time engaging in a closer economic union.

There are no rabbits out of hats here: it is the culmination of a process that began before either Wickremesinghe or Vajpayee became prime minister. It goes way back to the mid 1980s. And it is a process Wickremesinghe, with the support of Economic Reforms Minister Milinda Moragoda, has kept alive through frequent visits to Delhi, and also making the first moves (e.g. by removing the need of Indians to have visas to visit Sri Lanka, offering the Trincomalee oil tank farms as agreed under the Indo-Lanka agreement and by opening up the local petroleum market to Indian Oil). Now India has begun to reciprocate, and how! The open skies policy alone is expected to cut travel costs between the countries by half and also more than double visitor volumes.

The comprehensive economic partnership agreement, which is targeted for March 2004, will as stated in the Joint Study Group Report, "help both countries to experience the impact and potential of the process of integration on a bilateral basis in the first place."

And all the while, Chandrika Kumaratunga has been plotting the downfall of the government starting with last Thursday's move to censure the Premier's alliance with US interests. What a flop that was, for rather than the hoped for crossover by UNF MPs to the PA, it was none other than PA MP V. Puththrasigamani who crossed the floor to protest Kumaratunga's decision to hold her anti-peace demonstration on Deepavali Day, a day sacred to Hindus, and therefore many Tamils, which move was masterminded by Commerce Minister Ravi Karunanayake.

And thereby, yet another own-goal was scored by the PA's ham fisted political machinery, even as Wickremesinghe basked in the glory of having made it patently clear to one and all that he has both Delhi and Washington eating out of his hand. Indeed, Indian diplomats in Colombo openly state that the relationship between India and Sri Lanka has never been closer - a statement which seven years of rhetoric from Kumaratunga could not elicit from Delhi.

But all this is not to say there is room for complacency. While Wickremesinghe's grasp of the big picture is beyond reproach, his small failures are more likely to lose him votes, which are, after all, what counts. Ministerial arrogance and abuse of power, blatant corruption and the excesses of party henchmen like Thilanga Sumathipala could undo much of the Prime Minister's painstaking work. And unless he can curb in his party rank and file, the electoral dividend may well not materialise. Likewise, even as the stock market booms, it is necessary to ensure that money flows down to the people, and that the disparity between rich and poor narrows as rapidly as it can.

For the nonce however, Wickremesinghe's grand thinking has paid off, and the Prime Minister deserves congratulations. But even as he plans his next steps, he should keep a watchful eye on the imminent provincial council elections, and how the President will manoeuvre to remove him from office before then. It is in her gift to do so, and Chandrika Kumaratunga is a desperate woman playing a desperate end game. A stroke of her pen could lay waste all Wickremesinghe's grand alliances and master strategies.