‘We’re all patriots, we’re all nationalists’
Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on how an unusual political project has gone so far.
N. Ram-DECEMBER 15, 2016
Ranil Wickremesinghe, 67, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka for a fourth term and leader of the United National Party (UNP), is the spearhead of a complex game-changing project where the stakes are extremely high. The project is to see through Parliament, and then through a referendum, a major constitutional change that will put an end to the system of an overbearing executive presidency and usher in a prime ministerial system — and, crucially, put in place an enduring devolution of power solution to the Tamil question. Mr. Wickremesinghe leads a national government made possible by a highly unusual compact between the two main rival parties in the political system — the UNP, the party with by far the largest numbers in Parliament, and a minority of Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MPs who are with the Prime Minister’s political opponent-and-ally, President Maithripala Sirisena. While the leaders of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have taken a positive view of the constitutional change under way, the political forces of Sinhala ultra-nationalism are trying to rally round the former President, Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, 67, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka for a fourth term and leader of the United National Party (UNP), is the spearhead of a complex game-changing project where the stakes are extremely high. The project is to see through Parliament, and then through a referendum, a major constitutional change that will put an end to the system of an overbearing executive presidency and usher in a prime ministerial system — and, crucially, put in place an enduring devolution of power solution to the Tamil question. Mr. Wickremesinghe leads a national government made possible by a highly unusual compact between the two main rival parties in the political system — the UNP, the party with by far the largest numbers in Parliament, and a minority of Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MPs who are with the Prime Minister’s political opponent-and-ally, President Maithripala Sirisena. While the leaders of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have taken a positive view of the constitutional change under way, the political forces of Sinhala ultra-nationalism are trying to rally round the former President, Mahinda Rajapaksa.
