Endgame: Meditations on a House, a Country, a Career – 27 Different aspects of the campaign

The manifesto was launched at a ceremony at Vihara Maha Devi Park on December 19^th. That was my grandmother’s birthday, and I thought, when I went to the cemetery afterwards, that she would have been pleased that I was working together with Ranil. At the same time, though I realized that was essential, and UNP support was of the essence if Maithripala Sirisena were to win, it was also clear that the UNP itself was in shambles, and had little capacity for effective coordination.

I had sensed this in the decline of Mangala Samaraweera, whom I had thought of as one of the more sophisticated members of the UNP. He had been instrumental in getting Vasantha Senanayake to be the first member of the government to announce publicly that he would not support Mahinda Rajapaksa, though sadly for Vasantha he ignored the request that the Press Conference be held at an independent venue. Mangala instead dragooned Vasanth into making his announcement at Siri Kotha, which led to him being identified with the UNP, which had never been Vasantha’s intention. That was taken ruthless advantage of later to cut him down, tragically for both President Sirisena and also for the UPFA, which he could have contributed to immeasurably.

Twice after the common candidature was announced, Vasantha took me to see Mangala. But instead of the bright strategist I had assumed I would find, I had to deal with an amiable drunk, who wanted nothing better than to gossip over a drink, and then another. After the second such evening, in his delightful house in Ratmalana, I realized that this was yet another broken reed, his period out of power having deprived him of the capacity to focus which he had displayed earlier as a Minister.

Endgame: Meditations on a House, a Country, a Career – 29 The shattering of hope

Though I resigned from my Ministerial post, I had no intention initially of leaving the government. But even within a month of the new government taking office, there were reasons for grave worry.

No concern at all was evinced with regard to the solemn commitments in the manifestos. The 100 day manifesto, drafted after so much careful discussion, was almost completely ignored. Maithripala Sirisena was indeed sworn in on the 11^th, but Ranil Wickremesinghe was sworn in at the same time, not on the next day with the Cabinet as pledged. The Cabinet, slightly larger than pledged and composed predominantly of UNP members, without representation of all parties in Parliament was sworn in on the 13^th. The National Advisory Council, renamed the National Executive Council, was again constituted late and did not have representation of all members of Parliament. It soon ceased to function, with the Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament which it had entrusted to the Leader of the JVP swiftly forgotten.

Nothing was done about the pledge to amend Standing Orders on January 20^th, and it was only because I already had a motion to amend Standing Orders on the table that this was taken up on the 29^th. I realized then that the UNP in general was clueless about the whole business, but its membership at large was not obstructive. Lakshman Kiriella, the Chief Whip, let me move my motion, and the Committee on Standing Orders met the following month. We accomplished much, but then Ranil stepped in and imposed a delay until his proposal to set up Consultative Committees was drafted. That this was a ploy became clear when his chosen instrument for this, Priyani Wijeyesekera, told me the draft was ready but he had told her to hold it back.