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Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe

In December 2001, Ranil Wickremesinghe's UNP party won the parliamentary election, defeating President Kumaratunga's party. Kumaratunga had been elected President in 1994, re-elected in late 1999, and was scheduled to leave office due to term limits in late 2005. With the UNP-controlled Parliament scheduled to be in place until 2006, the PM and the President were scheduled to serve concurrently from late 2001-late 2004.

Since Sri Lanka's cohabitation experiment began in December 2001, President Kumaratunga and PM Wickremesinghe were at daggers drawn, with relations plunging to new depths by 2003. Both sides had their complaints against the other and neither wore a white hat: From the President's perspective, the PM and his government had shown her little respect. The PM, in the meantime, found the President mercurial and impossible to deal with. Amid their horrible personal chemistry hovered the aggravating factor that both are scions of political dynasties that have rubbed up against each other nastily for decades.

It was hard to imagine two individuals who were less alike -- and, in this case, opposites did not attract. The President was an outgoing person of rapidly shifting moods. She had great charisma and charm when she turned it on, and was excellent on the stump. By contrast, the PM was a technocrat and an excellent "inside" politician, and, in personality, phlegmatic. He appeared shy and sometimes uncomfortable in public settings. Unlike the President, he did not thrive on political confrontation. The few photos of the two leaders together underscored their acute discomfort with each other: in many photos, for example, the two were actively leaning away from each other and grimacing as if they cannot bear the sight of the other. Although political rivals can sometimes transcend day-to-day tensions and develop warm personal ties in Sri Lankan society, there is no record of Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe socializing with each other in any manner.

The PM and his team did not trust the President to any extent. There was a feeling that she and her advisers would agree to something, only to go back on the deal if they believe it is politically expedient. The PM and his advisers asserted that the President has been working on "an escape hatch," which involved aligning her People's Alliance (PA) party with the radical Janantha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party. The possibility of a PA-JVP combine made the UNP doubt that Kumaratunga sincerely wanted to improve cohabitation ties. There was also a view among many in the UNP that the President is out "to get" the 10 or so current UNP MPs who defected from her PA party in late 2001 and thus precipitated the December 2001 election which the PA lost.

In early November 2003, while the Prime Minister was in Washington to meet with President Bush, President Kumaratunga suddenly took over the Ministries of Defense, Interior, and Mass Communications. She also suspended Parliament for a two-week period. Kumaratunga cited the GSL's "ineffective steps...to ensure national security" as the key reason behind her actions. (At the time, the President also declared a "state of emergency," but several days later her office retracted it, saying no emergency had ever been officially declared.)

Countering the President's early November 2003 actions, the PM rejected her explanation of the ministerial takeovers and demanded that all three portfolios be returned to government control immediately. From mid-November until mid-December 2003, a joint committee composed of representatives of both leaders met to try to resolve the situation, but it had little success in ending the impasse. Further complicating matters, the PM made an unexpected announcement on 07 January 2004 that the government could no longer take responsibility for the February 2002 ceasefire agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in light of the President's continuing control of the Defense Ministry (see Reftels). While his statement was mischaracterized by some as indicating that the GSL was pulling out of the ceasefire accord altogether, the PM's statement strengthened domestic and international concern that the cohabitation impasse was steadily undermining the peace process.

Since coming to power in late 2001, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe took steps to steer Sri Lankan foreign policy closer to the US. Wickremesinghe's pro-U.S. views were long-standing and are in part a function of family connections. His uncle, J.R. Jayewardene, for example, was Sri Lanka's president from the late 1970s through the late 1980s, and maintained very close links with the U.S. In fact, Jayewardene was called "Yankee Dickey" by leftists for years. Moreover, Wickremesinghe, who comes from a very wealthy business family, was a strong advocate of free enterprise and strongly opposed to the disastrous socialist policies of former governments.

Wickremesinghe is also surprisingly knowledgeable about U.S. history and politics; he is an avid reader about the American Civil War, U.S. military history, and U.S. legislation. The prime minister's pro-U.S. views also emerge out of his political calculus that Sri Lanka needs the support of the international community, especially the U.S., to constrain the Tamil Tigers. With the peace process his government's number one priority bar none, the prime minister has worked hard to secure U.S. support for his efforts in this area from very early on in his tenure.

In pursuing this pro-U.S. course, Wickremesinghe was supported by two dynamic advisers, Minister of Constitutional Affairs G.L. Peiris and Minister of Economic Reform Milinda Moragoda. Beyond their official titles, both Peiris and Moragoda played key roles as peace process negotiators and policy formulators for the GSL. In general, the Oxford-educated Peiris' focus has been more on cultivating ties with former colonial power Britain and other Commonwealth countries, but he is very pro-U.S. and often visits Washington. More than Peiris', Moragoda's direct focus has been on cultivating relations with the U.S. and with India. A "big picture" person, Moragoda is also highly aware that the U.S. is the most powerful country in the world, and he feels that it is better that Sri Lanka recognize that fact and work within it.

The GSL inked a Trade and Investment Agreement, "TIFA," with the U.S. in 2002. On the defense side, the government has consistently supported U.S. military operations with blanket overflight and landing clearances as well as access to ports. As the peace process continues, the military also began to look toward increasing participation in United Nations peacekeeping operations and accepting a larger role in assisting the U.S. in the global war on terror. The PM's tilt toward the U.S. has faced stiff resistance from bureaucrats in the MFA, who were wedded to NAM, "G-77"-type thinking.

By 2003 the PM and his UNP government was generally quite popular due to its peace process and economic intiatives. It is believed to maintain very strong support not only in the business community, a traditional stronghold, but also among the public at large. Its strength in the Western Province, the most urbanized section of the country and where Colombo is located, seems to be overwhelming, as is its support in the Tamil community, which forms just under 20 percent of the total population. Christians, roughly 8 percent of the populace, were also believed to support Wickremesinghe's government quite strongly.

The United National Party (UNP) was roiled by internal dissension since the party lost the April 2004 parliamentary election. The dissent was a bit unfocused, but its main aim is to clip the wings of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the UNP and Opposition Leader, and/or remove him as party leader. UNP party member and Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) chairman Thilanga Sumithapala spearheaded an effort to replace Wickremesinghe as party leader. Sumithapala, in making this move, claimed that Wickremesinghe had failed the party and needed to be removed. In fending off Sumithapala's effort, there were unconfirmed reports that Wickremesinghe had to promise that he would undertake large-scale reform and "restructuring" of the UNP. Overall, the discontent within the UNP stemmed from the view of many party members (and outside observers) that Wickremesinghe led the party poorly in the April 2004 election campaign.

Presidential elections were held in November 2005, with SLFP candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa becoming President. In the wake of the United National Party's (UNP) defeat at the 17 November 2005 presidential polls, some members of Sri Lanka's oldest political party questioned once again whether Ranil Wickremesinghe, who led the party to defeat in 13 of the last 14 electoral contests, should continue as head. Wickremesinghe, who was perceived as an aloof, westernized intellectual, was seen as "difficult to market" to the rural Sinhalese Buddhist south. Wickremesinghe was undoubtedly smart and can speak well in diplomatic, parliamentary and/or academic circles, but lacks the common, glad-handing, "man-of-the-people" touch that worked so well for Rajapaksa during the Novemer 2005 election. The UNP leader appeared too affluent, wore too many suits, spoke too much English and had too many Christian relatives.

The appointment of Wickremesinghe as prime minister on 12 May 2022 was widely seen as a move to allow President Gotabaya to continue in his position in the hope that the protests will eventually dissolve. But this is unlikely to appease the activists, who are standing firm on their demand for the president’s resignation. For Tamils, Wickremesinghe is a familiar foe, and indeed the main Tamil nationalist parties have slammed his return. The former current prime minister has rejected accountability for war crimes and even claimed that he “saved Mahinda Rajapaksa from the electric chair” and protected state officials from being dragged in front of the International Criminal Court.

He supports the foremost place that Buddhism occupies in the Sri Lankan constitution and is on the record rejecting federalism as a solution to the ethnic conflict – all key grievances of the Tamil people. When it comes to addressing the root causes of the ethnic conflict and the ongoing demands of Tamils for a political settlement, Wickremesinghe and the Rajapaksas are not that different.