UNP-SJB rift, a matter of ego

Wickremesinghe also called on the SJB to join hands with his party, claiming that the SJB was not going to lose anything in such 
an event

Many political alignments are being planned in the North as well as South these days in view of the forthcoming local government and provincial council elections. However, the only proposed plan that might have a significant bearing on the political map of the country would be the one to unite the Main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and the United National Party (UNP). 
The idea was mooted subsequent to obvious signs at the tail end of 2022 that National People’s Power (NPP) led by Anura Kumara Dissanayake who is also the leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) was going to win the Presidential election.
The NPP leader who managed just to obtain only 3 percent of valid votes at the 2019 Presidential election unexpectedly catapulted to claim the title of most popular politician in the country following the Aragalaya, the popular uprising against the economic crisis in 2022. When the Presidential election was fast approaching, politicians like Rajitha Senaratne who is said to have been active against the JVP during the second insurrection of the latter were seen agitated to press both the UNP and the SJB to coalesce to avert a 
political disaster. 
However, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa who seemed then to be confident of their possible victory, ignored the calls. However, one of the SJB bigwigs in Ratnapura District, Thalatha Athukorala, exactly one month prior to the Presidential election raised alarms forecasting the definite defeat of Wickremesinghe and Premadasa due to the division of the UNP in 2020. 
She announced her resignation from the Parliament and the SJB in a special statement in Parliament on August 21, last year highlighting the disaster awaiting to happen. Why she was so silent up until then was not clear. She might have used this issue as a ruse to join the UNP believing that Wickremesinghe would continue as President even after the election. Whatever it was, her prediction, as that of millions of voters in the country on the fate of both Premadasa and Wickremesinghe came true, despite the NPP leader failing to get 50 percent of the valid votes. And the election results also proved her argument that a united effort by the UNP and the SJB would have defeated Dissanayake.
It was against this backdrop that many in both the UNP and the SJB became keen to see a patch-up between the two parties following the Presidential election. Athukorala joined the UNP a fortnight prior to the Presidential election. She seems to have intensified her efforts to unite the two parties since then. She was appointed the powerful post of General Secretary of the UNP on January 3, this year and last Saturday she stated at an event that “peace talks” with the SJB leaders have been commenced.
Wickremesinghe also called on the SJB at the same event to join hands with his party, claiming that the SJB was not going to lose anything in such an event. He called on the SJBers who made him politically bite the dust by deserting him five years ago not to think about the leadership, but to be concerned about the party.    
Nevertheless, it is not going to be an easy task for both the Parties, especially for the SJB, given the long birth pangs of it. The division in the UNP in 2020 was not an instant outcome, rather it was an outcome of two decades-long infighting. 
In 2001, an anti-Wickremesinghe rebellion sprang up within the UNP as a result of a notion that elections cannot be won under Wickremesinghe which had crept into the party after it lost all elections it faced at national as well as regional level, since its 17-year-long rule ended in 1994. The rebel leaders were Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya and Gamini Athukorala, the General Secretary and the brother of current General Secretary Thalatha. Sajith Premadasa then sided with Wickremesinghe. 

The notion was created mainly by the then ruling party, People’s Alliance led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Mangala Samaraweera who was a minister then promoted this notion with a slogan “Ranilta bae” (Ranil can’t) which carried political as well as derogatory meanings. 
Yet, UNP won the Parliamentary election in December the same year, settling the issue temporarily. However, when President Kumaratunga dissolved the Parliament in February 2004 the UNP was again on a slippery slope. It lost almost all elections until 2010 with which another rebellion broke out, on the same grounds, this time under the leadership of Sajith Premadasa. As he did in 2001, Wickremesinghe managed the situation for the time being with a promise to appoint a leadership council and appointed one including Premadasa a year later, but it was not given powers through the party constitution. 
While the tussle dragged on into the year 2014, the Presidential election approached and Premadasa wanted the party candidacy. However, other favourable developments including Maithripala Sirisena defecting the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to contest the Presidential election as the Opposition’s common candidate saved the day for Wickremesinghe. Sirisena won the Presidential election followed by a UNP-led coalition winning the 
Parliamentary election.
That Yahapalana Government ended in 2019 paving the way for another round of infighting. Premadasa was adamant that he be given the party leadership as well as the Presidential candidature. Ultimately, he was given the candidacy and Wickremesinghe retained the party leadership. Premadasa lost the election. With his majority group in the party, he borrowed another registered party called Ape Jathika Peramuna and changed its name to Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) to contest the general election in 2020.  
The rift between the UNP and the SJB has never been a policy issue, rather it was a fight for the party leadership purely based on ego. Hence, the resolution of the issue primarily revolves around the leadership and the powerful post of General Secretary.
The two parties can mend the relationship by uniting as a single party or an alliance, but in any event, would the SJB, which has a considerable vote bank cede the leadership to the UNP? Similarly, it would be difficult for Wickremesinghe to make his mind to work under Premadasa. 
It must be recalled that the TNA, until it died a natural death, failed to register itself with the Elections Commission for two decades, due to a similar 
leadership issue.