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By Madushka Balasuriya
Shammi Silva has been elected as the new President of Sri Lanka Cricket. Drawing in 83 out of a possible 142 votes, Silva, a candidate backed by former President Thilanga Sumathipala, beat out Jayantha Dharmadasa, who received 56 votes.
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Shammi Silva |
Despite the many swings and roundabouts over the course of the last several months, where elections were postponed indefinitely, and SLC had been run by a Sports Ministry-appointed Competent Authority, the final tally of votes sees essentially the same faces return to power.
Alongside Silva, other members of the previous Executive Committee in Mohan De Silva and Ravin Wickremaratne have been voted in again, this time as Secretary and Vice President respectively. Meanwhile K. Mathivanan returns as Vice President, in the process becoming the only member of the Dharmadasa faction to be elected in.
The results also translate to yet another unhappy election outcome for the brothers Ranatunga. Former World Cup-winning captain Arjuna lost out narrowly in the race for VP, racking up 72 votes to Wickremaratne’s 82 and Mathivanan’s 80, while the younger Ranatunga, Nishantha, running for the post of Secretary, picked up just 43 votes to De Silva’s 96.
The end result sees a mere shuffling of the same pack, with Sumathipala and Dharmadasa the only major players missing out from the office bearers voted in during SLC’s last elections in 2016.
Elsewhere, Lasantha Wickremasinghe (100 votes) beat out Eastman Narangoda (37) to the post of Treasurer, while Lalith Rambukwella (92) was voted in ahead of Sanjaya Senarath (42) for Assistant Treasurer.
Chrishantha Kapuwatha (94) meanwhile was voted in as Assistant Secretary ahead of Hirantha Perera (44).
Dharmadasa and co. disconsolate
Speaking to the media after his defeat, Dharmadasa cut a resigned figure. In the build-up he had spoken boldly of achieving upwards of 100 votes, a far cry from his eventual tally of 56. Asked as to where things began to go wrong, he stopped short of calling out his opponents for buying votes.
“I’ve lost, and I think cricket has also lost. I don’t know what happened over the last couple of days, but before that we were quite sure of winning. A lot needs to change in order to improve Sri Lanka Cricket,” he told a group of journalists in the halls of the Sports Ministry last afternoon. “I’m not going to comment on [whether any money has changed hands in exchange for vote], but something underhanded has definitely happened.”
Dharmadasa’s running mates Arjuna and Nishantha Ranatunga were far more brazen in their analysis of the election outcome.
The elder Ranatunga, Arjuna, outright called any SLC election - not just this one - rigged, stating that no one, not even the President of the country, could win an SLC election.
“This is not a contest, but a fix. This is what I always say, you can’t come for a cricket election and win,” said the former World Cup-winning captain. “President Maithripala Sirisena could come and contest these elections and he would lose! You can never win an SLC election as long as these same people are there.
“Look at the scenario. With cricket having fallen to such a state - there is match-fixing taking place, the money coming to SLC has gone abroad - yet these officials who were culpable in its downfall still end up getting voted in … beyond that what is there to talk about really? I’m not trying to sling mud at anyone but you can understand the true state of cricket in the country.”
Nevertheless, the younger Ranatunga promised to work towards holding this new administration accountable for any possible misdeeds in the future, while also assuring the public that they would look to work together when and where possible.
“We will do what is necessary to improve Sri Lanka Cricket, even from the outside looking in. We will offer our cooperation for things which are good, but if they do something wrong then we promise to expose them,” said Nishantha.
“It’s not the voters that are wrong, but we are just concerned about the way Sri Lanka Cricket is heading. When we left in 2015, Sri Lanka Cricket was in a much better state, but now we’ve dropped to the point that we have to play qualification tournaments to qualify for major tournaments.”
How Shammi won
In the preceding weeks, both De Silva, who was set to run for President, and Wickremaratne, who was up for the post of Secretary, had been banned by an Election Appeals Committee, after being adjudged to have violated Sri Lanka’s Sports Law, which as per a 2016 Amendment prevents any previous office bearer of a national sports body which had been dissolved by the Government from contesting in any future elections. The pair had been part of ousted Committees in 2001 and 2005.
In response, De Silva and Wickremaratne challenged the ruling in an appeals court, which was where a loophole was discovered. As it transpired, while De Silva and Wickramaratne had put their names in the hat for multiple positions, the objections filed against them had only referenced some of those posts. Essentially, this allowed the pair to contest on the condition it wasn’t for the posts they were banned from.
It is unclear who is at fault for these clerical errors, but in any event it left the legal counsel representing the Sports Ministry no choice but to let De Silva and Wickremaratne contest for the posts of Secretary and Vice President. The Writ Petition hearings, however, are set to continue on 21 March.
This turn of events is thought to have swayed voter sentiment. Until then Silva, a backup candidate to De Silva, was to run for President against Dharmadasa, while the coveted posts of Vice President and Secretary were set to be run virtually uncontested by those in the Dharmadasa camp - a situation that, had it prevailed, would almost certainly have seen Dharmadasa come out victorious in the presidential stakes.
That events panned out in this manner, while unexpected, was not wholly surprising. Thilanga Sumathipala has long been identified as the most powerful force in Sri Lanka Cricket, and despite not contesting this time around, he has continued to cast a wide shadow. Most notably in the strong voting bloc he possesses, which is likely what eventually won Silva the presidential race.
One of the primary election strategies for Dharmadasa and his camp had been to neutralise this threat. Nishantha Ranatunga’s court case against Sumathipala, which eventually led to the latter withdrawing his candidacy, and Dharmadasa’s objection to Mohan De Silva’s candidacy, had seemingly achieved this goal successfully. So much so, that Dharmadasa had been favourite to take the post right up until the eve of the elections. But that late compromise between Sri Lanka’s Sports Ministry and the previously disqualified pair of De Silva and Wickremaratne reinstating them in the race, gave the Sumathipala-backed faction the numbers they needed.
