Ranil[1] will Run!
Do not be surprised!
Come mid morning next Monday, the 8th of December, and Ranil enters the office of the Commissioner of Election with a defiant look on his face, and a determined step and declares I will run and enters the presidential race!
Ranil will run! This has a nice ring to it and why not, for ringing of bells will follow. Why is Ranil running? Because he is the heir (hear ye! hear ye!) to the house that JR built and has come back from the west to regain his rightful place. We forget and lest we forget, he won for all intents and purposes in 2005 if not for Prabhakaran’s perfidy to prevent the good voters of the north from voting. And 28,633 people who would have voted for Ranil did not do so. Alas and alack! The striped one paid with his life.
Ranil walks in makes the necessary payment, signs the required papers, waves at the people walking about their business outside the walls of the Commissioner’s office and gets down to the hard task of continuing to run. And he is not like Lochinvar! Who says so? And the bride, who is the “would be” bride? All very confusing! You, us, we be the brides, he has come to save us give us a better lease of life.
Why will Ranil run for President? Because he must, he has to, he can. How else can he lead the party and be its fearless leader? He ran twice, in 1999 and 2005, and came very close to winning once. That’s not a reason to run, but as the leader to hand the party over to the till a few days ago General Secretary of your main rival? I mean what does he see in the eyes of the party members in Badulla, Kekirawa, Maradana, Wanathamulla, and the indigenous people in the Mahiyangana region and what does he tell Binaramalee? We shall prevail and I will lead you?
All strategy and hush hush! The common candidate? Brilliant! The commonness makes for a Goulash and a Gumbo and a Sambar heated together in a Samaovar and drunk instead of tea. And the money? Oh! That will be from the common pot! Just great, otherwise how could one party bear to deal with this unless it had access to the printing press for money. That is already booked and taken.
And why not run? Ranil will keep the political party he got, after all he was given it to keep. But to be at the helm of the party and to lead short of victory is not much leadership. But with the largesse of the victor shared graciously how can he keep what he doesn’t have? He knows that he is facing something like the stalwart leftist parties faced but in a different way, the matter of relevance, his relevance to the party. That’s where a university education comes in handy and Ranil has that. See no hands, see the party, see it move, first here then there, we strategically use others, we use them to do our work. I have it, now I don’t, you have it and I take it from you and we have it and then I give you back your party. Clever Ranil!
Once upon a time another son of a political family realized that he too would like to lead from behind. His parents had been heads of state in Sri Lanka, but he, a decent man in many ways, just did not have it in him to get to the grubby task of leading a political party to victory. Walk in his elder sister and she led and became the President twice. And Ranil will run. The logic hangs rather strangely on this one.
What a check list! Onerous Executive President, changed, check! Bribery and twin brother corruption gone, check! Good governance, yes, check! All criminals in jail, yes! Check! Family dynastic ambition, erased, check! Better foreign policy, yes, check! Thirteenth amendment, ahem, status quo, check! LLRC and human rights, yes, yes, and access and freedom of movement all over the island to all, yes, check! War crimes? What? SOP (save our president) yes! Check. Glorious military, yes! Check! Yes mates, yes! Check mate! Rooks and all and the Queen? All over the board!
No, really, don’t hold your breath, Ranil will run! Risk some money on it! Pass on the news. So say it, Ranil will run. Hear it, Ranil will run!
[1] In case you have forgotten Ranil is Ranil Wickremasinghe, trained as a lawyer is the leader of the United National Party, twice presidential candidate, a veteran parliamentarian and former Prime Minister.