The 2022 aragalaya arose to once again take someone like Premadasa to the Presidential palace. Although Premadasa’s son Sajith was qualified for this, Anura dressed himself in the image of Premadasa and went to the palace. Sajith, by trying to wear Ranil’s and J.R.’s shoes, went home.
by Upul Joseph Fernando
“Ranasinghe Premadasa, a poor boy, rose to the pinnacle of politics dominated by the aristocracy through the urban labour movement and became the President. He was born in a slum area in Colombo, and his family came from an oppressed caste in Sri Lanka. Although caste oppression in Sri Lanka wasn’t as severe as in India, where literacy was less common, Premadasa was an outsider to the land-owning aristocracy that controlled politics. ~ New York Times, 21 December 1988
This is how the New York Times described Ranasinghe Premadasa’s victory when he became President. Exactly 36 years later, the international media describes Anura Kumara’s victory similarly, as a man from a humble family who broke through the political system dominated by elites to become President. However, no media outlet claims that Sajith Premadasa lost because he, like Anura, was an outsider challenging the political system controlled by the elite.
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| Anura Kumara Dissanayake with Sajith Premadasa [File Photo] |
Why?
Because Sajith failed to convince the people that he and his family, including his father, were outsiders to the aristocratic system.
The JVP uprising of 1988–89 was launched against Indian expansionism, but its roots lay in opposition to the aristocratic political system. J.R. Jayewardene believed Premadasa was the best candidate to face the JVP uprising because his close allies, Lalith and Gamini, were seen as part of the elite political system. At that time, the country demanded a small man from a humble family, which J.R. understood perfectly in his political calculations. He knew if Lalith or Gamini were candidates, Mrs Bandaranaike would win because, even though they were major figures in the elite political system, the party she represented, the SLFP, was seen as more progressive than the UNP. J.R. used a man like Premadasa, a small man, to blast away Mrs Bandaranaike, the elite leader of the progressive class. His calculations were correct.
Premadasa used a single slogan throughout his presidential campaign: that he was a small man from a humble family challenging the aristocratic system. He once challenged Mrs Bandaranaike to walk with him along a village dirt road, to bathe in a stream, and to eat in a humble home. By doing so, he implied that he was an ordinary man used to living simply.
Unable to tolerate such talk, Anura once said that his mother didn’t choose to be born into an aristocratic family.
At that time, the people saw Premadasa as a small man from their own class. They thought, “Let’s give this man a chance.” The JVP uprising brought the country to that point. The uprising was fuelled not by the elite class youth but by the young men and women from small families oppressed by caste in rural areas. Listening to their voices, the people made a man from a small family President.
The 2022 aragalaya was also a struggle of small people, the children of small families. They demanded an outsider— not someone who had been corrupted by the political elite system, but someone who stood outside it, untainted.
From that perspective, Sajith was better suited than Anura to be that outsider. Anura’s faction had brought Chandrika, Mahinda, and Ranil to power, protecting the system. But Sajith had no such deals with Chandrika, Mahinda, or Ranil. He was the leader who rebelled against Ranil’s elite leadership in the UNP. While he was leading that rebellion, Mahinda and Chandrika were supporting Ranil. Even Anura Kumara was helping Ranil at that time. In that scenario, Sajith was the real outsider.
So why didn’t Sajith market himself as the outsider?
I don’t know. What really happened is that while Anura was trying to wear Ranasinghe Premadasa’s shoes, Sajith tried to wear Ranil’s and J.R.’s.
The tragedy of Sajith is that he didn’t realise the 2022 struggle was demanding an outsider to change the system. Sajith thought people wanted someone like Ranil or J.R., an elite figure with international connections who could revive the economy. As soon as Ranil became President, Sajith came forward to stand for the struggle, but his party’s leadership advised that the struggle was damaging the economy and should be suppressed, as business leaders were saying.
‘There’s no point in the aragalaya anymore. Now, everyone is talking about the economy…’
This was the advice given by Sajith’s party leaders.
‘Let’s support the IMF. Let’s say Ranil’s economic policy is our economic policy…’
These were the types of suggestions given to Sajith. During the debate on Ranil’s first budget, Sajith and the SJB said the government’s direction was correct.
‘This is our party’s policy. Today, the Pohottuwa party has adopted our economic policies…’
Sajith and the other SJB MPs declared this in Parliament during the budget debate. Anura and the JVP, on the other hand, said they would bring back the wealth stolen by the country’s corrupt elites and build a new economy instead of continuing the failed policies that had bankrupted the country for 70 years. They spoke about the luxury lives of the elite ruling class, their Prado cars, bodyguards, foreign trips, and official residences, contrasting this with the JVP’s simple, austere lifestyle. Anura once mentioned wearing second-hand clothes and clothes with holes, showing they represented the working class. The SJB laughed at this, mocking how Anura and the JVP leaders would negotiate internationally in English.
The 2022 aragalaya arose to once again take someone like Premadasa to the Presidential palace. Although Premadasa’s son Sajith was qualified for this, Anura dressed himself in the image of Premadasa and went to the palace. Sajith, by trying to wear Ranil’s and J.R.’s shoes, went home.
