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PROFILE: Rohitha Abeygunawardena SLPP’s golden boy

16 Oct 2022

By Rajasinghe No student of contemporary Sri Lankan politics can ignore the mass meeting of hardcore Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) supporters organised by parliamentarian Rohitha Abeygunawardena on his home turf of Kalutara a few days ago. It has sent ripples of concern among our political, business, and diplomatic establishments.  Former President Maithripala Sirisena has pooh-poohed this meeting, calling it “an artificial one”. He knows that any progress by this group will firstly be at the expense of his rump Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), particularly when elections come near. The meeting has also blown away any pretence that President Ranil  Wickremesinghe (RW) is an independent operator and not a ‘servant boy’ of the Pohottuwa.  Vintage Rajapaksa drama MR went overboard on behalf of his lifelong friend without realising that he was tearing RW’s reputation to shreds. The meeting was full of the drama that we can expect when MR is on stage. Rohitha, addressing him continually as ‘Sir,’ made a histrionic speech referring to his tribulations under the Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR) regime, particularly on 9 May when his office and mother’s house were set on fire.  Referring to the mother is a surefire attention-getter on our political stages and Rohitha made a bonfire of it. Firstly, he had positioned his charming mother in the front row in the hall and looking lovingly at her, he pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket and began sobbing uncontrollably, saying that the Aragalaya terrorists had nearly burnt her alive. It was a heartrending performance which could be compared to MR kissing the tarmac in Katunayake on his return after the defeat of the LTTE at Nandikadal.  All this was vintage Rajapaksa drama and took us back to the heady days of MR’s baby-kissing and tearful farewells. It also portended the return of his M.G. Ramachandran type of politics, which bankrupted the country and brought its population to the brink of starvation. To improve on the shining hour, RW’s classmate Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena poured scorn on him, saying that being a single MP leader, he had no hope of governing without the blessings of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), thereby making his humiliation complete. RW’s honeymoon with the Pohottuwa is over and every day brings new demands on the captive President.          A charismatic figure Rohitha is a good example of what is good and bad about Sri Lankan politics, particularly of the SLFP and SLPP variety. He is no doubt an impressive and charismatic figure who has had to fight all the way up the political ladder. A natural leader, he first became a loyal employee of the Democratic United National Front’s (DUNF’s) Kalutara Leader Ediriweera Premaratne. Ediriweera was a supporter of Lalith Athulathmudali, who had appeared for him in a murder trial in which he was the accused.  Rohitha was so popular that his patron had to depend on him for most of his votes. He in turn insisted that Rohitha should be nominated to the Local Council in Beruwala and threatened to leave the party if Rohitha was not given the nomination. From then on, Rohitha never looked back, having received increasing majorities at every subsequent election.  In 1994, he won comfortably and was identified as a Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK) hardliner. When S.B. Dissanayake and his cohorts including G.L. Peiris and Mahinda Wijesekera joined the United National Party (UNP) on being disenchanted with CBK, it was Rohitha, popularly known as ‘Rattaran’ for whatever reason, who held the fort in the Kalutara coastline for CBK, as did Kumar Welgama in the hinterland.  Stronghold in the Western Province  Thanks to them, the refurbished UNP could not make a significant breakthrough in the Kalutara District, which had been their happy hunting grounds when Sir Ukwatte Jayasundera and Sir Cyril de Zoysa dominated politics there and fought against the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP).  After 2005, Rohitha became an MR loyalist and secured the district for him in the presidential race. MR rewarded him with powerful portfolios. He was accused of corrupt practices by the Bribery Commission, but escaped its scrutiny by claiming that he had been bitten by a snake and therefore could not be present at the hearing. Nothing happened subsequently. Kalutara is important in national politics because it is part of the triad comprising the Western Province (Colombo, Gampaha, and Kalutara), which has the largest population and the largest number of seats in Parliament. It is not possible to form a government in this country unless a party wins handsomely in the Western Province. That is why Pohottuwa ‘generalissimo’ Basil Rajapaksa (BR) contested and won Gampaha, thereby ending the dominance of the Bandaranaikes in the Gampaha District.  There is a school of thought that MR would not have lost the presidency in 2015 if he had fared better in Gampaha, which is the home of not only the Bandaranaikes but also of the Sirisenas before their father, an officer in the land army, left Yagoda village for better pastures in Polonnaruwa.  The MR resurrection  Thus, Kalutara and Rohitha are strategically important for an MR resurrection – especially now that Welgama is against them in the district’s heartland and CBK is against them in Gampaha, trying to rally her forces in Attanagalla and Dompe. The situation is further complicated by CBK’s budding friendship with RW. All this shows that parties are beginning to work on their electoral mathematics. Several features stand out from the Kalutara jamboree. It marked the coming together of the MR loyalists who met at Temple Trees on 9 May to persuade MR – as if any persuasion was really necessary – not to resign from the premiership as requested by then President GR. In addition to Rohitha, there was Johnston Fernando, Pavithra Wanniarachchi, and Namal Rajapaksa.  There was no good word for GR, who had polled the highest-ever number of votes as a president. His picture was missing in the cutouts and Pavithra complained that he had not allowed them to help their party loyalists, who, according to her, were found jobs in their tens of thousands by the earlier MR dispensation.  Namal apologised for the shortcomings of the GR regime, even though his father, now in his old age, mistakenly asked the audience to support President Gotabaya before he was reminded by his handler Neville that RW was now the President. Corrected mid speech, he then lauded RW for giving up his ‘bad ways’ and getting on the Rajapaksa bandwagon.  Coming months Supporters of the Grand Old Party – the UNP – must have choked on their food when they heard of their erstwhile leader’s conversion to Rajapaksism. They also followed the tearful Rohitha condemning the Aragalaya ‘terrorists’ for the arson and murders of 9 May. None of them referred to who started it all by attacking the unarmed protesters outside Temple Trees and at Galle Face. It was a stunning exhibition of collective amnesia. All indications are that the coming months will see many political realignments. A new coalition with MR as its titular head is likely to be proclaimed with the objective of re-gathering the splinter groups whose bête noir was BR, who is now recuperating in the US. The litmus test to come is the issue of BR’s dual citizenship. In spite of all their travails, the SLPP majority seems to oppose the removal of the possibility of dual citizens contesting local elections. Will RW and his supporters have the numbers to bring in an amendment to ensure that they will be kept out? That is most unlikely now and the Kalutara meeting showed how isolated he can be if he has the temerity to challenge the Rajapaksas and their outrageous demands.  


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