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In an interview with News18, Ranatunga questions the current political turmoil in his country and claims that Mahinda Rajapaksa's controversial appointment as prime minister was a "bad decision" at a time when the government was losing its unpopularity anyway. 19659002] Mahinda Rajapaksa has not been able to prove his majority and you have the advantage now. Is Ranil Wickramasinghe popular or unpopular?
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I think it's not about being popular or unpopular. When we formed the government in 2015, Sirisena became president. He was supported by the United National Party (UNP) under Ranil's leadership, and all other communities such as Muslim, Tamil and civil society also supported Sirisena. Then we had the legislative elections in which the party of Sirisena and Wickramasinghe could not win a majority. People might want the two major parties to come together to solve problems that we have not been able to solve in the last 30 years. So when Rajapaksa was appointed Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, everyone knew that it was unconstitutional. But now I will not be able to talk about it anymore because the case is on trial.
But the fact is that we have done a lot of good things over the past three years. I was part of the government with Sirisena as president and Wickramasinghe as prime minister. We did a lot of development work and paid the loans we had to pay. So we established the country in the first three years. It is only now that we have thought of giving back to the public a lot of things than getting into debt every time.
Wickramasinghe is not a person, but a very good ambbadador and statesman. I have worked in the last three years and it has been very positive. There are a lot of positives and it was a very good combination with Sirisena. It is regrettable that they had to break this communication and that few people are satisfied with the current structure.
Wickramasinghe, as you say, is not a person. Do you think that caused Sirisena to break with him?
I really do not know why. I am very close to both but we were not even told. We all experienced sadness. It was very difficult to get them both to get rid of Rajapaksa in 2015. The whole country was looking to get a new president and a prime minister, and to move it to a different level. – what we have done in the last three years. I'm not saying we were 100% good, but we did a lot better than the previous government. Even if you take the cost of living and prices before 2015 and now, apart from one or two important items, all other items remain cheaper than in 2015. I think we have not properly announced what we did. We did not sell as well.
This was one of the discussions we had in cabinet. Even the media were with us. But we have never exploited these problems. If you take Rajapaksa's previous government into account, he got a lot of promotion without doing anything. They showed a lot but nothing happened. Here we did a lot of things but the marketing aspect was very weak. The message was not given to the public. We made some decisions without informing the public. Take the price of fuel, for example. The Treasury has proposed a new policy whereby world prices must increase so that we can raise our prices. By doing this, we are saving a lot of money for development work but we have not announced it. Thanks to this economy, each member received 100 million rupees to carry out development work in these regions. It's a lot of money and no MP has ever been. In the past, it was run by one or two Rajapaksa brothers or another. But now, every MP has received funding to develop their respective fields. Now, if people had known about it, they might not have reacted the way they did. I think these are the mistakes we made.
When Wickramasinghe was appointed prime minister, he did not have a majority. Looks like we're back to square one with Rajapaksa, but you're challenging him. Where do you draw the dividing line between constitutional and unconstitutional?
When Wickramasinghe was appointed, we had the 18th Amendment in the country. We now have the 19th Amendment, which has undergone many changes. Most powers have been taken away from the Speaker and entrusted to Parliament. It was the goal we had in mind. But there are problems with the Constitution where you need a two-thirds majority or a referendum to change certain powers conferred on the President, which we could not do. The court told the government not to make any changes when we tried to do it. But I think the difference between the two amendments is now happening.
Do you think that Wickramasinghe can lead the UNP in the next elections?
It's up to them to decide. He is a very good worker and has been keeping the UNP together for 24 years and you must thank him for that. But I'm sure people need a change. I am sure the UNP will do the right thing before the next election. The public has asked to appoint a new leader within the UNP. We want the members of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP), who are not happy with the current situation, to join us. The people of Rajapaksa are also not very happy with the situation. Honestly, I seek to get honest people on the political scene. I do not know who will lead the alliance, but the UNP is a majority party.
What does the current alliance have to say about Wickramasinghe?
There are people who want him to stay and there are people who want him to resign. Even the members of the UNP wanted a change, the country wanted one. Some wanted him to stay and others wanted him to help. It's up to the UNP to decide, but I personally feel that it should be there to guide anyone advancing the UNP and the government. He is a very experienced politician. He may not be a popular guy, but he is a very smart politician.
Rajapaksa swept the local elections. There was then a mbadive rally that attracted attention in its favor. Do you think this recent episode – the fact that he became prime minister and the Parliament was dissolved – put him on the back burner?
Absolutely. They made a bad decision. They should have given the government time to become unpopular. I know Rajapakasa, he is another very experienced politician. I do not know why he wanted to come into power so quickly when things were on a plateau. The government became unpopular. Fuel prices were rising. As a government, we could not do much to give concessions to the public. But I think that they have lost a lot of credibility in trying to access power through the back door and that even their popularity has greatly diminished. In fact, the UNP appeared because of this episode.
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