‘Hirunika too knows which side her bread is buttered’

Many eyebrows were raised this week when Hirunika Premachandra, the daughter of slain Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) organiser for Kolonnawa and former parliamentarian Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra accepted a post as the party’s organiser for the Colombo Central electorate.

It came as a surprise because Premachandra had been at the forefront of criticising the ruling United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) for her father’s death and claiming that judicial investigations in to the killing were not being expedited.

Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, Hirunika’s father, was a grassroots politician. He too was a strongman of sorts, having wrested control of the Kolonnawa electorate for the SLFP, after long years of domination by Weerasinghe Mallimarachchi of the United National Party (UNP). In his domain, ‘Lucky Aiya’ was a popular man.

Premachandra’s conflict with Silva arose as a result of the latter also nursing the Kolonnawa constituency. A turf war began and given the aggressive nature of politics both of them engaged in, the dispute quickly escalated into what would eventually become a deadly conflict.

Hirunika Premachandra has not been shy to point an accusing finger at another UPFA parliamentarian Dumindha Silva who also suffered serious injuries in the incident that saw Premachandra being killed. That there is no love lost between the duo is no secret.

Silva’s injuries were reportedly so serious that he could not attend courts for months. He was flown overseas for treatment under a cloak of secrecy but has since returned and has made a complete recovery judging from his public appearances.

Premachandra has been a strident critic of the process that allowed Silva to return to public life instead of being behind bars on murder charges. Premachandra became the face of the anti-Dumindha campaign, presenting herself in courts regularly and issuing media statements calling for Silva to be charged with murder.

This week though the pictures told a different story. Wide publicity was given by the state media to the appointment of Premachandra as a co-organiser for Colombo Central. Photographs of her accepting the appointment from President Mahinda Rajapaksa and then worshipping him were splashed across the front pages.

Premachandra is also expected to be granted nomination to contest the forthcoming Western provincial council elections for the UPFA. She is bound to garner a large number of preferences simply because of the name recognition factor due to the publicity she has already generated.

Premachandra has many assets: She is a lawyer and with her striking good looks she also dabbled in modelling. These two credentials alone were always going to guarantee an easy passage to Parliament if she required one.

However she maintained a low profile until the death of her father and was then only known for her modelling talents. The shooting incident at Kolonnawa on October 8, 2011 during the local government elections changed all that and Premachandra leapt in to the limelight.

With Premachandra constantly sniping at Silva through the media, it was known that opposition parties also wooed her. However, she has opted to stay with the party that her father made the supreme sacrifice for, the SLFP.

That is mostly because of the Premachandra family’s long standing association with President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Even when she was extremely critical of the judicial process that was dealing with Silva, Premachandra would say that the President was a father figure to her.

For the President-who recently successfully negotiated the entry of United National Party (UNP) stalwart Dayasiri Jayasekera to the SLFP-the advent of Premachandra to Colombo Central will be another political coup. He is killing many birds with this stone.

Premachandra-as long as she was flaying Silva with her acerbic remarks over the media-was an embarrassment to the ruling party. Now that she is also a card carrying party member, it is unlikely that she can do so again.

The choice of Colombo Central as the electorate for Premachandra to nurse must have been a deliberate one. It is Colombo’s most populous constituency and election to Parliament would be virtually guaranteed for its nominee. It is also the seat that was nursed by political giants such as Ranasinghe Premadasa.

The sheer number of voters in the electorate means that whoever is organiser in that electorate will get a head start in the war for preferences-and this will be critical for UPFA candidates because the Colombo district is top heavy with ministers.

At present its SLFP organizer is Senior Minister A.H.M. Fowzie. Premachandra’s appointment may signal the end of the road for Fowzie –who was seen smiling in camaraderie at the ceremony held to mark Premachandra’s appointment.        

With every chance that 2014 will be an election year, there is a high possibility that Premachandra will soon graduate from the Western Provincial Council to Parliament. In fact, that is also the route taken by her arch nemesis, Dumindha Silva. If this eventuates, it would be interesting to see how Silva and Premachandra would function as colleagues in the same parliamentary group!

Premachandra’s critics would however condemn her move as being opportunistic. By accepting the SLFP’s organiser post for Colombo Central, she will stand accused of betraying her father-and also of hypocrisy because in the months since October 2011, she had vowed to pursue her father’s killers through legal means.
She would of course not be the only politician in recent times who has had to eat their own words. The most striking example is Dayasiri Jayasekera who was one of President Rajapaksa’s harshest critics but is now hardly heard of because he has been appointed as Chief Minister by the President.

This will not be the end of the Premachandra saga. Instead, it only signals the President’s intention to tie up all loose ends and gear the party for election year-and Hirunika Premachandra will be much more than a small cog in the wheel in that grand design.