Ranil laments aloud about dwindling MPs

UNP's PLIGHT: When it comes to crying out loud about being hurt it's hard to beat the UNP leader. The man wails about what he says is enticement of UNP members of parliament by President Rajapaksa.

Instead of admitting that the UNP is suffering a haemorrhage in the ranks of its MPs and taking steps to stop the increasing flow of green blood into government, he keeps blaming the government for his plight and even threatens action against the government.

It's hard to come by a political leader who is so copious in his tears about how the other side is baiting his members, without just pausing for a while and thinking why there is such a desire to get out of the party he leads. He is so bothered about repletion of his ranks that he even complains to India, with a plea that she uses her neighbourly influence to stop the green bleeding.

India has urged the two major parties the SLFP and the UNP to come together to arrive at a negotiated solution of the ethnic crisis, and hopefully bring about peace.

But, India is hardly likely to listen to the laments of Ranil Wickremesinghe about those who are accepting the plums offered by the Government. Not even dinners of lamentation with a diplomatic hostess can possibly lead to the international community setting of another group of Co-Chairs to solve the problem of Wickremesinghe's lack of control over his own party.

Peace held to ransom

Faced with a crisis of leadership, with a strong letter even coming from the usually silent Milinda Moragoda, what does this one time "prince of peace" and the flawed Ceasefire Agreement say? He threatens to walk out of the All Party Conference and by implication the Peace Process, whatever state it is in today.

When the entire country and a good many foreign countries keep asking for cross-party understanding to reach a negotiated settlement of the ethnic conflict and disarm the Tigers, the UNP leader is equating the problems he has with his parliamentary group, with the much larger issue of war and peace.

His willing trumpet, Tissa Attanayake, who cannot miss one day without making some asinine statement about the political situation, makes a joke of his repeated demands that the government gets out of the way to let the UNP take over the reins of power.

Both Attanayake and his leader, who demonstrate increasing lack of spine for party leadership, let alone be a national leader, have forgotten that the people did not vote in a Government and a President to just step aside whenever an opposition party asks them to do so; especially when the party making this demand, does not have a sufficient hold on its members.

It's time that Wickremesinghe, Attanayake and others who echo the warnings to the Government about not supporting efforts at a negotiated settlement if it keeps taking in members of the UNP who are obviously fed up with its leadership, should know the difference between a major national issue and a crisis within one's own political party.

To warn of not participating in the APC and the search for consensus in the South on a negotiated solution to the ethnic crisis over political cross-overs is to hold the possibility of peace to ransom, in the narrow interests of one's own political party.

The possibility of a negotiated settlement that may bring about a lasting peace in this country is not something to be bargained for preserving the unity of one political party, which is coming out in its seams and even worse, however old or large it may be.

There is no doubt the democratic process in Sri Lanka, which is dominated by two major parties, will be best served if there is a strong and viable UNP, that is committed to democracy both in word and deed.

This is not the same as the cause of democracy being served by the existence of a party which is imploding under the burden of a poor leadership and eroding in the face of an extended period in opposition, with very little hope of returning to power under the existing leadership.

In the same groove

The UNP leader may be trying to evoke sympathy for himself and his party, or what may be left of it very soon, by his jeremiad about enticements being offered by the benches on the other side of parliament. But, when he warns of not supporting the search for consensus through the APC in protest against the desertion among his ranks, he is playing to form in avoiding consensus over settlement of the ethnic issue and an end to the war in the country.

It is important to recall that it was the same Wickremesinghe who after several months of negotiation with former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, came to an agreement on the Draft Constitution prepared by her government, and carried out what I then called the infamous Judas handshake signaling the UNP's support for the new constitutional changes.

In less than a week this Green Iscariot withdrew his support and that of his party for the draft constitution, and brought about the worse day ever seen in the Parliament of Sri Lanka. The excuse he gave on that occasion was that the Draft Constitution had not been shown to the Maha Sangha to obtain their blessings. The fact was that he did not want Chandrika Kumaratunga to succeed in what she believed was the initiation of a lasting settlement of the ethnic crisis.

What he did at the tail end of lengthy negotiations with Chandrika Kumaratunga in August 2000, Wickremesinghe is seeking to do at the beginning of the All Party Consultations initiated by President Rajapaksa.

The UNP leader is playing the same old worn out record of non-cooperation in resolving the most important national issue. The record is stuck in the same old groove of non-cooperation and non-participation. Sri Lanka needs much better leadership qualities from the UNP, if that party is to contribute in anyway to solving the crisis the country is faced with today.

In the absence of such leadership, charges of enticing seasoned adult politicians, who know what is good both for them and the country will not carry much weight with the people, however much Tissa Attanayake may bray, lost in a field of political scarecrows.