Sri Lanka It's Happening

November 19, 2005

It seems most likely that Ranil will either resign as the leader of the United National Party or there may be a rebellion to oust him. Hopefully that will not happen for the sake of the UNP.

Even though Ranil Wickramasinghe may not be acceptable to 50.3% of the countries population, others in the UNP are even less acceptable. Many have been tainted with scandals of bribery and corruption. Very few of those with a clean image have a vision.

That is not to say that the UPFA (the other main) party has people with visions and they are free of corruption. Many in the UPFA are more corrupt than the UNP but they have somehow managed to escape scrutiny. The blame for that lies with the UNP itself.

During Ranil's short reign as prime minister, many a corrupt practice of the previous regime surfaced but the government took no action. Many will argue that Ranil was forced to adapt concilatory tactics because the president, the person with the final say was CBK, the leader of the UPFA.

The ultimate result was the after making a big hue and cry about corrupt UPFA politicians the UNP tamely let the issue get buried over thus losing credibility. It would have been far better for them not to have raised any fuss at all. The bribery commision of the country being largely inactive hasn't really helped. When UNP's excesses surfaced, the UPFA especially the JVP kept harping on these issues.

The UNP parlimentarians might even have been squeeky clean, but if you tell a lie often enough people will believe it, so the public opinion is that the UNP parlimentarians are corrupt. However many, even those who voted for Mahinda belive that Ranil himself has kept is nose clean. Not that it did him any good.

Posted by raditha at November 19, 2005 7:36 AM