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By an unusual set of circumstances Ranil Wickremesinghe ascended to the position of Sri Lanka’s eighth Executive President on July 20.

In November 2019 Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the Presidential Election with a massive vote of 6.9 lakhs and followed it up with a near two third majority at the Parliamentary Elections of August 2020.

Not content with such a massive mandate, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Government repealed the 19th Amendment and enacted the 20th Amendment which vested near absolute power in the Executive President.  

The ill conceived 20th Amendment which was strongly criticised by many concerned citizens on account of its anti democratic character facilitated the downfall of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Presidency as well as the destruction of the Sri Lankan economy.

Clothed with the extensive powers given to him by the 20th Amendment, the President was isolated from the people and insensitive to their needs. He moved from one flawed decision to another ending up with his disastrous move to switch overnight from chemical fertiliser to organic fertiliser plunging the agricultural sector into a tailspin.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s mindset in decision making was clearly evident from his response to a Government official who asked that a circular be issued to reflect an order given by him. ” I am the President, what I say is the circular” he remarked.

The groundswell of public opposition to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa as a result of poor governance forced him not only to step down from office within the space of two and a half years but also to flee the country.

The Constitutional transition of power that has followed has now placed Ranil Wickremesinghe in the highest office in the land where he faces some of the toughest challenges of his political career.

The six time Prime Minister is practically on his own with no Members of Parliament from the United National Party to help him. By a strange irony his support in Parliament comes from those who derided and ridiculed him in and out of Parliament in the last two and a half years.

These critics have to now eat humble pie and look to President Ranil Wickremesinghe to get the country out of the economic crisis created by them and their leader.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s performance during the two months he functioned as Prime Minister after President Gotabaya Rajapaksa stepped down has showed up the latter in a poor light. Immediately after the former took over there was a flurry of activity in the ranks of Government and several initiatives by President Ranil Wickremesinghe towards resolution of the economic issues. In contrast in the months preceding his resignation, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seemed overwhelmed by the deteriorating economic situation and did not or was not capable of taking any action to salvage the situation

During the two months of his Premiership Ranil Wickremesinghe had also succeeded in laying the groundwork for assistance from the International Monetary Fund as well as other international agencies. He has also promised to present a budget that prunes down all development oriented expenditure and divert such funds towards the welfare of the people.

Now that circumstances have made Ranil Wickremesinghe the President he should seize the opportunity to complete the unfinished business of the Yahapalana Government. The main plank of the Yahapalana administration was to abolish the Executive Presidency which process was only half completed through 19A.

According to media reports upon assumption of office as acting President he had directed that the original 19th Amendment be prepared to be presented to Parliament. One hopes that he is able to quickly restore the 19A by repealing the disastrous 20A which facilitated the creation of the economic crisis and the misgovernance of the past two years.

This should be followed by the abolition of the Executive Presidency.

Meantime the highly deplorable attacks on the protestors in the precincts of the Presidential Secretariat in the early hours of Friday despite their announcement that they would leave the Presidential Secretariat by noon that day was not only counterproductive but also to be condemned.

Even during the time of the Yahapalana Government both President Ranil Wickremesinghe and then President Maitripala Sirisena suffered severe criticism and humiliations from their opponents without suppression.

If President Ranil Wickremesinghe wants to achieve success in his arduous tasks he needs to allow the democratic space that his Yahapalana Government created to continue. Incidents like the one that took place in the early hours of July 22 apart from being in violation of democratic norms, will make his task that much more difficult.

(javidyusuf@gmail.com)