JR’s playbook is a recipe for disaster

President J.R. Jayewardene was arguably the most formidable national leader of Sri Lanka in the second half of the 20th century. A stalwart of the United National Party, Jayewardene led his party to a landslide victory in 1977 and served as Prime Minister for half a year before becoming the country’s first executive president under the second republican constitution. Serving as the first executive president from 1978 to 1989 his policies liberated the economy and helped Sri Lanka recover from one of its worst economic crises precipitated by the previous administration.

Yet for all his admirable achievements in the economic front, history will record J.R. Jayewardene as the leader who left office leaving two civil wars burning on the two ends of the country. In his endeavour to decimate his political opponents and further ethnic cleavages, Jayewardene had left a vacuum that was filled by militant groups, both in the Tamil North and the Sinhala South. In 1980, on the recommendation of a Special Presidential Commission to investigate allegations against Sirimavo Bandaranaike for abuses of power during her tenure as Prime Minister, her civil liberties were suspended for a period of seven years, removing Jayewardene’s primary opponent from the political arena.  

In 1982 a national referendum was held to prolong the life of parliament by six years, denying the electorate an opportunity to express its will through a ballot. The first and only referendum in the history of the country ensured the radicalising of political voices which until then had some meaningful expression. In 1983 Jayewardene presided over the worst ethnic pogrom against the Tamil community. He characteristically blamed the incidents that killed over 3,000 civilians and destroyed generations of wealth on his Marxist and socialist opponents who were incarcerated over alleged involvement in the July violence. 

Recent proclamations by President Ranil Wickremesinghe on postponing elections and his unhealthy obsession with persecuting those who championed the “Aragalaya” movement are awakening some of the ghosts of the 1980s. The 1982 referendum to prolong the life of parliament was a watershed moment in our history that unleashed many violent forces that deemed it untenable to effect political change through peaceful means at a ballot. The clampdown on socialist parties including the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna over absurd allegations of involvement in the July violence ensured that group went underground to unleash an orgy of violence for the next five years. 

All those economic strides made through the accelerated Mahaweli Development Scheme, the Janasaviya and Gamudawa programs, the Mahapola scholarship scheme and the numerous benefits of an open economic system, were negated by the political violence that engulfed the land. Jayewardene for all his potential to deliver a promise of peace and prosperity eventually will be remembered as a tragic failure.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe is well-advised to recall this past as he toys with ideas of benevolent autocracy. Where the formidable, charismatic, erudite Jayewardene failed there is no chance of Wickremesinghe succeeding. Sri Lanka’s current economic woes are not going to be solved in a year or two after the complete meltdown of 2022. It will take a generation of astute leadership. Such leadership could only emerge with a mandate and legitimacy from the people. 

Postponing elections and undermining the franchise is the very opposite of what should be done at this point. As the recent history of the 1980s proves, such machinations are bound to fail at a tremendous cost to the country and those who attempt such manoeuvres are going to be relegated to the dustbin of history.