Cornered tigers

Sri Lanka is gearing up for a showdown on 21 September to elect its ninth executive president. Early morning on 21 September, a little over 17 million are eligible to vote in the Presidential Election. Their vote will determine the future and the fate of this beautiful island nation, one of the most significant strategic locations on the world map for commerce and strategic defence. 

The polling booths will open at 7 a.m. and the last ballot will be cast at 4 p.m. But this isn’t just another election; it is the first election after the economic and political chaos that prevailed in the country since 2022, where democratically elected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country with First Lady Ioma Rajapaksa amidst widespread protests and violence. 

The Presidential Election campaign is a battleground of ideas, power, and ambition. The 2024 Presidential Election will go down in history as the most complex and unpredictable election the country has ever witnessed since the country’s first Presidential Election in 1982, where former President J.R. Jayewardene had a landslide victory against rival Hector Kobbekaduwa.

The distant third in the race of the 1982 Presidential Election was the fiery revolutionary, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Leader Rohana Wijeweera. Under Wijeweera, the JVP led two brutal and unsuccessful armed rebellions in 1971 and 1988/’89. But what about now? How did we get here, where the choice of the president seems a battle of head, heart, and hate? 

The candidates

In 2022, post-Gotabaya Rajapaksa debacle, incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe took over the country through a parliamentary majority vote as per the Constitution after beating his rivals Dullas Alahapperuma and Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD). Many were of the view that Wickremesinghe would not run for the presidency in 2024, but he is very much in the race and campaigning hard. 

For his followers, he has done the unthinkable in resurrecting the economy and bringing normalcy to the country, which was burning just two years ago. However, for his critics, he should be defeated at all costs to bring down his political legacy. 

President Wickremesinghe is the nephew of President Jayewardene and cut his political teeth under the latter’s mentorship. Then there’s former President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s son, Opposition and Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) Leader Sajith Premadasa. 

Wickremesinghe was the third-in-command during President Premadasa’s final year. After the latter’s brutal assassination by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Wickremesinghe was appointed as the Prime Minister at the age of 44. Young Premadasa joined the United National Party (UNP) under the leadership of Wickremesinghe and entered Parliament in 2000. Today, they are at loggerheads and political enemies. 

The third serious candidate in the race is JVP/National People’s Power (NPP) Leader AKD, a rising star in comparison to the historical vote bloc of the JVP, which had under 5%. He is now a contender in a race that could see him challenge the country’s political status quo. 

And then there is Dilith Jayaweera, the media mogul-turned-billionaire, a kingmaker, trying his hand to be the king.

The fifth in the race is Namal Rajapakasa, often called the ‘crown prince’ by his loyalists. At the age of 38, Namal is in the race; his most significant credential is that he is the eldest son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and has mirrored his father’s attire and famous moustache.  

Considering the stakes

Are these the choices that will define Sri Lanka’s future? Is the nation prepared to entrust its destiny to one of these men? 

The voters will have to vote for any of the above five and 33 other candidates in the race. Perhaps Sri Lanka should look at creating more entry barriers to the Presidential Election, as some of the candidates in the race have not only become a laughing stock but also a burden to taxpayers. 

The Election Commission could look at how the Supreme Court charging fines for some of the court cases was done without any basis, rationale, or logic, and this could be a simple way to enforce entry barriers whilst protecting democracy and fundamental rights as per the Constitution. 

As you ponder these questions, consider the stakes. With over 17 million Sri Lankans eligible to vote, the outcome will not only determine who occupies the highest office in the land but also set the tone for the rhythm over the next five years. Economic challenges, employment opportunities, cost of living, foreign relations, and the fight against corruption are but a few of the critical issues on the table. 

The recent promises from most of the candidates, however, are aimed at seducing vulnerable voters with financial incentives. If this is done by protecting the national budget, it will be well and good, but mere promises could take the country back to where it belonged for decades, which was penalising the good to protect the bad, penalising the honest to protect the dishonest, and penalising the hardworking to protect the lazy. 

However, no one in the country disagrees that the poorest and most vulnerable people need to be protected, and the question that looms larger is why someone would remain poor for decades and what measures have been taken to uplift the marginalised to a position of hope and desire to do well for themselves. 

A ‘system overhaul’?

Will Sri Lanka choose continuity with Wickremesinghe? Or will it lean towards his archrival Premadasa? Or will Sri Lanka choose AKD, looking for an overhaul of the system as widely projected from his end? 

The last time Sri Lanka voted for a system overhaul was in 2015 with Maithripala Sirisena; in 2019, the country voted into politics rookie Gotabaya Rajapaksa with a resounding victory. Wickremesinghe and Premadasa represent the establishment, and AKD represents the “system change,” as he describes it. 

The JVP as a party had been direct stakeholders to the Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK), Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Sirisena presidencies, and AKD should be aware of the challenges of promising an overhaul of a country. It’s easier to pen down a strategy, but the devil is in the details and the execution. 

In a country where restructuring a private sector organisation seems a herculean task, where hardly any rich people are being convicted by a court of law, and where a bribe of Rs. 25,000 ends in jail but a bribe of Rs. 2.5 billion sometimes never sees the courts, ‘system overhauls’ seem a distant dream. If the majority of the people are ready for a ‘system overhaul,’ all candidates including AKD don’t have to promise sun, moon, and stars again. Either candidates are reading the public wrong or they are correctly reading that the masses still need to be seduced by incentives, even jeopardising fiscal discipline. 

In 20 days, Sri Lanka will decide. As that day approaches, it’s not just the candidates who should be preparing. Every voter must reflect on what truly matters. This is more than an election; it’s a defining moment for a nation just coming out of one of its darkest periods. Even during 26 years of terrorism and civil war and the 1988/’89 armed rebellion, the mood of the nation was more hopeful. 

So where do you stand? What kind of Sri Lanka do you want to wake up to on 22 September? The power is in your hands. What will you do with it? Will you be exercising your head, heart, or hate? 

A race far from over

As the campaigns of Wickremesinghe, Premadasa, and AKD gather momentum, not by choice but by necessity due to the proximity of election day, there is an air of premature triumph within each camp. But history warns us against such early celebrations. Overconfidence has been the downfall of many; the political stage is littered with stories of those who thought they had victory in the bag, only to be blindsided by an electorate that refused to follow the script. 

Consider the 2016 US Presidential Election, where it seemed certain that Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump – a political newcomer with no experience in governance. But when the votes were counted, the world was left stunned by an outcome that defied all expectations. 

With 20 days still to go, it’s worth remembering that in politics, even a single day can change everything upside down. The race is far from over and the electorate’s final decision may surprise us all. 

When covering the recently concluded Lok Sabha Elections in India, I witnessed the Modi camp being routed for having high expectations and the Gandhi camp’s lofty predictions being crushed when the results were announced. However, even on 4 June, at noon, the anti-Modi camp was celebrating an early victory, but six hours later, the Modi camp had the last laugh. 

If anyone needs to understand the unpredictability of modern-day elections, the Indian General Election was a case study. Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election will not come far behind, although the difference is 968 million voters in India to 17.1 million voters in Sri Lanka. If the Modi campaign taught us a political lesson, a Clinton 2016 campaign taught the world a much broader life lesson. 

Dangers of complacency

What went wrong for Clinton in 2016? It wasn’t just one thing; it was a cascade of miscalculations, wrong steps, wrong strategies, complacency, and most importantly, internal discords, infighting, fragile egos, and multiple power centres. 

Clinton’s campaign, buoyed by a false sense of security, failed to grasp the changing mood of the electorate and underestimated the appeal of her opponent. The Clinton campaign team read Trump as a candidate who could not possibly win, dismissing his unconventional style as a political sideshow rather than a serious threat. 

But the real unravelling happened within Clinton’s own ranks. The infighting, mistrust, and flawed strategies within her campaign team created a toxic environment where crucial warning signs were ignored or downplayed. 

Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes capture this internal chaos vividly in their book ‘Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign’. They peel back the layers of a campaign that, from outside, seemed poised for a victory but was actually crumbling within. 

The book reveals how Clinton’s team was so focussed on winning the White House that it neglected the very voters who would decide the outcome. Even Hillary’s husband Bill was a liability to the campaign, whereas Barack and Michelle Obama were both assets and liabilities. In their political complacency, they missed the trends and shifts across the country. 

The lesson here? Complacency, not only in politics but also in life, is dangerous, and those who celebrate too early might find themselves left out in the cold when final votes are counted. 

To quote Allen and Parnes: “When we first began reporting for this book in late 2014, Hillary Clinton was the candidate to beat for the presidency. Her resume – First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State – was unassailable. At her peak in the last job, two-thirds of Americans had approved of her performance. 

“More importantly, she had spent a great deal of time and energy trying to correct the flaws of her 2008 Democratic Primary loss to Barack Obama. And most political analysts believe that Democrats, coming off his consecutive victories, had powerful advantages in Presidential Elections: a mortal lock on states that provided 242 of 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House and a superior handle on the mechanics of turning out voters.”

Hillary and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, had prepared for this bid for six years. They had rewarded friends and punished disloyal Democrats after the 2008 race. Bill had raised money for Obama and delivered a rousing endorsement of the sitting President at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, a move that helped seal the Obama-Clinton bond. He had campaigned in Democratic Primaries against candidates who the Clintons felt had betrayed them in 2008. 

Once she was out of Government, Hillary herself had hit the hustings for Democratic Senate candidates in the 2014 Midterm Elections. In 2013 and 2014, a super PAC run and funded by her allies had raised millions of dollars and collected hundreds of thousands of names of potential supporters. They were ready for ‘Clinton’. With all this, how did Trump triumph? 

Largely, it was the campaign and the campaign team. To quote Allen and Parnes again: “When the email story first hit, Hillary’s aides were still trying to get a feel for another. The crisis acted as a catalyst for infighting. Publicly, she was running a no-drama campaign. But behind the scenes, Hillary’s brain trust broke into tribes. 

The Mook Mafia, led by [Robby] Mook; Marlon Marshall, his top lieutenant; Elan Kriegel, the data analytics chief; and Oren Shur, the paid Media Director. 

The State Crew, led on the inside by Huma Abedin, the Vice Chairwoman; Jake Sullivan; Nick Merril, the travelling Press Secretary; and Dan Schwerin, the chief speech writer; with longtime Clinton advisers Cheryl Mills and Philleppe Reines invisibly guiding Hillary behind the scenes. 

The Consultants, led by Joel Benenson, the Chief Strategist; Jim Margolis, the ad-maker; and Mandy Grunwald, the longtime Clinton message maven. 

The Communications Shop, led by Jenifer Palmieri, the Communications Director, Kristina Schake, her deputy; and Christina Reynolds, the Research Director, who had worked with Palmieri on the John Edwards campaign.”

Although Allen and Parnes had written about the Clinton campaign’s negative dynamics, this is universal in political campaigning. If your candidate wins, there will be hundreds of fathers to the win, and when the candidate loses, all fingers will be pointed at the candidate. Nothing new; history will always repeat. 

I quote Allen and Parnes again: “‘We lost because of Clinton Inc.,’ one close friend and adviser lamented. ‘The reality is Clinton Inc. was great for her for years, and she had all the institutional benefits. But it was an albatross around the campaign.’” 

Unpredictability looms large

Presidential candidates become hot topics in the election campaign, but except for one, others have to lose. When you lose, the world turns on you and most people will leave you. A savvy political leader knows the bitter truth of a campaign. 

The sense of triumph in the AKD camp is extravagant and they are already acting like victory is theirs, with celebratory speeches that sometimes border on super-ego. AKD’s supporters are confident, perhaps too much so, that their man has already sealed the deal. 

But they are not alone in this. Over in the Premadasa camp there is a similar sense of inevitability. Despite a series of defections to Wickremesinghe, the Premadasa team is projecting an easy win, driven by their candidate’s relentless energy. Known for his self-proclaimed workaholic tendencies, Premadasa is running a campaign as if it is dynamic, refusing to be shaken by setbacks. 

Meanwhile, Wickremesinghe’s campaign has been revitalised by an unexpected surge in his own vigour. Even his most loyal supporters have been taken aback by the transformation they have witnessed since 1 August. At 75 years of age, Wickremesinghe is displaying a level of energy, intent, and charisma that many thought was beyond him, electrifying his base and giving his campaign a new momentum. 

Yet, as all three camps push forward, confident in their own narratives of victory, it’s important to remember that when the dust settles and the votes are counted, only one of these men will emerge as the true winner. It’s not about who celebrates the loudest or the earliest; it’s about who the people choose to lead them into the future. 

I can’t help but recall the Presidential Elections of 1999, 2005, and 2015, where the winner emerged behind a twist that left the country stunned. 

In 1999, CBK edged out Wickremesinghe in a closely contested race that many thought would go the other way, courtesy of an LTTE suicide bomb attack on her which she survived after losing an eye. In 2005, It was Mahinda Rajapaksa who snatched victory from Wickremesinghe again, courtesy of a mass voting boycott in the Northern and Eastern Provinces by order of the LTTE. And who could forget 2015, when Maithripala Sirisena, an underdog candidate, defeated the seemingly invincible Mahinda Rajapaksa? 

Each time, the country at large was taken by surprise, proving how unpredictable the nature of presidential races in Sri Lanka can be. 

As we approach the most complex Presidential Election in Sri Lanka’s history on 21 September, that unpredictability looms larger than ever. With just 20 days to go, no one can confidently predict the outcome. The race is tight, and if no candidate secures over 50% of the vote, we may witness, for the first time, a second-round preferential vote count. 

So have you made up your mind? Or are you still weighing your options, considering the stakes, and pondering who truly deserves your vote? What’s on your mind today? 

Sports and blood sports

Cricket, the game that unites over two billion South Asians like no other, has often been the stage where underdogs rise to achieve the impossible. The 1983 World Cup final at Lords, where Kapil Dev’s men stunned the world by defeating Clive Lloyd’s mighty West Indies, is a prime example. 

India wasn’t expected to make it even to the semi-finals let alone win the final. When they were bowled out for 183 runs in the final, the match seemed all but lost. Yet, Dev’s leadership and unwavering belief in his team turned the game on its head. 

The West Indies, giants of the cricketing world of the era, were bowled out for 140. Dev’s running catch to dismiss the legendary Vivian Richards off Madan Lal was the moment that inspired the team, handing India an unforgettable victory. This wasn’t just about cricket; it was about the power of belief, resilience, and a leader’s ability to inspire his team to push beyond their limits. 

On 17 March 1996, Sri Lanka cricketers, led by Arjuna Ranatunga, delivered what Dev did for India. With all due respect to others, Aravinda de Silva was the only player in the 1996 Sri Lanka team to be labelled as world-class; all others were talented but in no way did they have legendary status. 

However, Ranatunga and his ‘brothers’ lifted the Cricket World Cup in Lahore, beating the mighty Aussies, who were a star-studded team in that era. This was the day Pakistanis in Lahore inside the ground and Sri Lankans everywhere in the world were harmonising in one voice, praying for a victory for Sri Lanka. 

The best was when Imran Khan led the Pakistan team to a World Cup final victory against England in 1992 in Melbourne. No one would have imagined Pakistan could win the 1992 World Cup. They had only Khan and Javed Miandad as legends, and others were talented but inexperienced players such as Wasim Akram and Inzamam-ul-Haq, amongst many others. 

Pakistan had won only one out of six matches at one stage and they had to win every match thereafter to win the final. It was a moment that Khan famously addressed the team and spoke to its members individually, and in his baritone, told them to fight like “cornered tigers”. He even wore a white t-shirt with a big tiger at the toss of the final to show he was serious. A cornered tiger doesn’t have anywhere to go, and you have to fight for survival and for victory. 

Dev, by his own admission, was ill-treated by India Cricket. Khan, after many struggles, became the Prime Minister of Pakistan and now serves a jail term, with many crediting it to political victimisation. Ranatunga turned to politics in Sri Lanka with much promise in the early days but has been all over the place in party politics. 

Unlike cricket, politics is a blood sport, where high stakes, different rules, money talks, betrayals, accusations, perks and positions, threats, intimidations, seduction, honeytraps, protests, violence, and many more form the ground rules. 

Perhaps this is why politics is all about the ‘art of possibility’. 

A candidate and campaign team that could think like ‘cornered tigers’ could pull off a famous win on 21 September. To feel like cornered tigers, you need humility, grit, and more importantly, awareness of the public’s sentiments. It’s about following Sun Tzu’s principle of ‘know yourself, know your enemy, and know your terrain’. There is no other way. 

The next two weeks will be all about meeting people in the villages, door to door, but not with empty promises, rather with logic and reasoning for their head and heart, while squashing the hate. In the next two weeks, ‘hope, fear, and jealousy’ will be at play. Who will be better at that?

(Source article – TheMorning)