Honourable Member of Parliament (MP) Chamara Sampath Dasanayake is very much in the news these days, not for anything he did or not, but refreshingly, simply for being who he is. The outspoken Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) MP, being one of the handful who were lucky enough to make it back to Parliament in the face of the National People’s Power (NPP) juggernaut that decimated the Opposition, speaks volumes about his popularity in the Uva region. To further add to the man’s interesting persona, he probably remains oblivious to the comparisons being made between his humble background and that of the haughty last Speaker of Parliament, Asoka Sapumal Ranwala.

By self-confession, the roly-poly Dasanayake is uneducated, having attended his village school up to Grade 2. Thereafter, by confession once again, domestic circumstances had forced him to sell vadai on the Colombo-Badulla railway line for survival. Yet, Dasanayake’s reelection to the 10th Parliament of Sri Lanka, with the support of the very people whom he sold his vadai to back in the day, points to a very interesting fact; a home truth that has been obscured in the recent past owing to the NPP’s grandstanding, that the uneducated have no place in the country’s Parliament.

It also points to a fundamental principle in democratic governance, where honesty is essentially the cornerstone on which public trust is enshrined. While the people in Uva voted for Dasanayake well aware of his background, the people in Gampaha voted for someone whom the NPP said held a doctorate.

The criteria to be an MP do not specify any educational qualifications other than being a citizen of Sri Lanka over 18 years. It is the NPP that set the criterion that only those professionally qualified should enter Parliament. Therefore, Dasanayake’s reelection in an environment where those of his ilk were frowned upon, primarily by the NPP’s grandstanding, is food for thought.

Now, let’s contrast that with the NPP that prided itself on only nominating educated and qualified professionals to Parliament, a mantra that people obviously bought into, given the party’s very effective campaign that pinned the blame for the nation’s decay on the calibre of MPs elected to the House thus far. However, less than a month following the last General Election, that mantra has blown up in the NPP’s face, reducing it to the butt end of all kinds of unsavoury jokes.

What the NPP must be finding hard to digest so early into its term is that it has already become a victim of its own making. The resignation of Ranwala as the country’s 22nd Speaker of Parliament, having served just 22 days in that august office, has not only brought personal disrepute to the man, but consequently brought down the NPP edifice, carefully constructed on the perceived foundation of a curated professional governing body. The third citizen of the nation, whom the second citizen, the Prime Minister introduced as “Doctor Ranwala” and then proceeded to nominate him as Speaker at the inauguration of the 10th Parliament, has not only been forced to resign in disgrace in the face of his dubious doctorate allegedly turning out to be a dud, but has also sparked comparisons with events nearly 10 years ago.

It will be recalled that the ‘Yahapalana’ regime of 2015 was welcomed with similar hosannas as those that were extended to the NPP in the election aftermath. The need for coining such a term as ‘Yahapalana’ was necessitated by the alleged rampant corruption of the decade-long Rajapaksa rule at the time. The people, despite open intimidation and thuggery, voted for the promised good governance of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe combo in the hope that rogues would be locked up and corruption would be ended. But it took just two months for that administration to be caught with its hands in the till in the Central Bank scam, more popularly known as the bond scam. 

With its credibility in tatters, no matter what it did thereafter to redeem itself, the card stuck. So much so that even two General Elections down the line, the United National Party (UNP) was unable to win a single seat in 2020 and only secured one seat in 2024. Such is the unforgiving nature of the modern Sri Lankan voter that the NPP must now do all it can to douse the fire surrounding its own credibility crisis that has evoked memories of 2015, albeit for different reasons, but nevertheless leading to the same end: a breakdown of public trust. 

In the process, the NPP now lays claim to not only having appointed a Speaker with dubious credentials – the very type it fought against – but also the enviable record of Ranwala being the shortest-serving Speaker in history, having chaired just one parliamentary debate and one sitting week of Parliament. But worst of all, the NPP runs the risk of being dumped with the rest and categorised as yet another party that deceived the people. 

The damage caused could have been mitigated to a great extent had decisive action been taken by the party leadership to sack Ranwala when the first signs of trouble surfaced a couple of weeks ago. That was when former Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya openly challenged the newly appointed Speaker to prove his educational credentials that purportedly included a degree from the University of Moratuwa and a doctorate from the Waseda University in Japan. This open challenge was followed by another from an alumnus of the University of Moratuwa, former MP and Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka. Having previously served as Minister of Power and Energy during the ‘Yahapalana’ regime, it appeared that Ranawaka was privy to Ranwala’s actual qualifications, which according to the former Minister was limited to a vocational diploma.

Ranwala’s unsuitability for the post was apparent from the word go when he appeared clueless and all at sea while in the chair, with his aides having to constantly intervene to point out protocol, much to the embarrassment of the majority group. By delaying to act on Ranwala, the main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) was able to score a rare goal by threatening to bring in a no-confidence motion against the Speaker. Had that materialised, the NPP would have been hard-pressed to vote against the motion, given the precedent of the Keheliya Rambukwella episode and its fallout, which saw the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) take a severe beating. 

With the pendulum now having swung the other way and the SJB scoring much-needed brownie points by taking credit for Ranwala’s resignation as having been precipitated by its intended action, the NPP has been compelled to engage in damage control even as it finds its feet in the seats of Government. Meanwhile, the party also has to come up with a suitable replacement as the first order of business when Parliament convenes on Tuesday (17). Ranwala in the meantime has left a window open for some redemption, claiming in a statement that he will produce the relevant certificates in due course. 

However, the supreme irony of this episode is that it has allowed the very people whom the NPP scorned and ridiculed to take the moral upper ground. Who would have thought just a month ago that the likes of SLPP scion Namal Rajapaksa, whom the NPP relentlessly attacked and called into question his own academic qualifications, would be given the space to issue statements ‘welcoming’ Ranwala’s resignation, calling it ‘commendable’. Rajapaksa goes on to state in a X message that “other MPs in the NPP Government who are unable to prove their qualifications should step down immediately”. 

While necessarily being rich, coming from a person whose own law degree has been the subject of much discussion as the Hansard will show, it goes to demonstrate just how much things have changed in such a short time. 

It is for this reason that parallels have been drawn and questions are being asked as to whether this is tantamount to being the NPP’s ‘Yahapalana moment’ vis-à-vis the bond scam and subsequent fallout, given the equal loss of credibility in both instances as opposed to the mandate received. It appears that going forward, and the likelihood of other Ranwala-like episodes, the NPP can take a leaf or two from the book of the likes of Dasanayake in keeping things simple.