Let the law take its course

• There are some such incidents of political vendettas that have far-reaching effects on the society and its history

The arrest of former President Ranil Wickremasinghe over alleged misuse of public funds - literally a legal issue --  has inevitably become a huge political issue mainly as it has signalled what is in store for many other leaders of Opposition political parties who have rallied behind the jailed leader, apparently because of the very threat.

Wickremasinghe has been arrested over an incident during a foreign tour. While on his way back from a G77 summit in Cuba, he  attended a ceremony at the University of Wolverhampton where his wife Maithree had been awarded an honorary professorship during a stopover they made in the UK in 2023.  The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) alleges that this was a private visit for which state funds were used. 

The leaders of almost all active Opposition parties, most of whom had accused Wickremasinghe of stealing  public funds in the past, defended him during a joint media briefing on various grounds, such as no distinction should be made between the official life and the private life of Presidents; they further said  that the visit was mainly for the 15th anniversary celebratory lunch for Lord Swaraj, the Chancellor of Wolverhampton University. The gist of their arguments was that the National People’s Power (NPP) government was on a political vendetta against the leaders of the Opposition parties. 

Despite the merit or the demerit of the case against the former President, which will  be decided now by the courts, their argument about a political witch-hunt might go down well with many in the country as successive governments since Independence have been accused of such vendettas, and many such allegations have been proved later. 

There are some such incidents of political vendettas that have far-reaching effects on the society and its history. The deprivation of the people of Indian origin of their civic and citizenship rights in 1949 by the first United National Party (UNP) government because of their  support for the leftist parties at the first Parliamentary election in 1947 could be traced as the first political vendetta in  Independent Sri Lanka, then officially called Ceylon. This created a stateless population in the country, a problem that lasted till 1988, creating  tension between Sri Lanka and India.

If not for the deprivation of Sirimao Bandaranaike, the world’s first woman Prime Minister of her civic rights in 1980 after her second tenure, the trajectory of the Sri Lankan history could have been vastly different. Had Bandaranaike been spared in that case and won the 1982 Presidential election; the term of the Parliament would not have extended in that year for another six years, the balance of power in Parliament would have been changed at the 1983 general election,  the anti-Tamil pogrom of 1983 would not have taken place, sometimes the trajectory of the separatist war would have been changed in the context of close corporation that existed between Sirimao Bandaranaike and Indian Premier Indira Gandhi; and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramina (JVP) would not have been proscribed, leading to that party becoming another spent force by now. 

Just before the extension of Parliament’s term in 1982, the UNP government extended its revengeful activities against the then main Opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by Bandaranaike. A group of SLFP leaders including Vijaya Kumaratunga and his wife Chandrika who later became the President of the country were accused of planning a coup in the style of Indian Marxist Naxalite rebels,  and eleven of them were arrested. 

Proscription of the JVP along with the Communist Party and the Nava Sama Samaja Party then led by Vasudeva Nanayakkara amidst the anti-Tamil riots of 1983 was another political revenge by the UNP. JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera by this time had filed a case in Colombo District Court against the results of the referendum conducted to extend the term of  Parliament. The Jayewardene government interestingly proscribed the JVP and the government counsel wanted the JVP leader to answer certain questions pertaining to the latter’s petition,  which he failed to do as he had by the time gone underground. The case was dismissed. The rest including loss of over 60,000 lives is history.

We cannot forget what happened to former Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake when recalling the incidents of vendetta by the past governments. The situation came to a head during the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration when the President appointed a commission to annul the cases against the loyalists of his party and abolish the civic rights of those who were responsible for filing those cases.

Against this long backdrop,  there is the possibility of a certain degree of skepticism among the people over the genuineness of the allegations against the former President. It is the judiciary that should and would ultimately clear the air.

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