Ex-President's arrest in Sri Lanka: Some should not be more equal than others

"Some are more equal than others" is a paradoxical phrase from George Orwell's allegorical novel Animal Farm that highlights societal hypocrisy, where the concept of equality is proclaimed but a privileged few receive preferential treatment

- Raj Gonsalkorale

THEATRICS in Sri Lankan politics has reached a crescendo with the arrest, remanding and bail out of Ranil Wickremesinghe, former President, Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and Member of Parliament since 1977.

Opposition strong men and women who shunned Wickremesinghe and strongly objected to him being the President of the country, from within Opposition ranks and from outside, and called him various derogatory names in Parliament and outside, rallied around him after his arrest. Some quipped that birds of a feather always flock together although when he was President, many of them questioned his legitimacy as President claiming he did not have a mandate to be President having entered Parliament as a nominated member while the party he led suffered the most humiliating defeat in its history at the general election in 2020. His party, the United National Party polled only 249,435 votes. The 2024 general election was much worse for his party, as it managed to obtain only 66,234 votes nationally.

He was praised by some for steadying the economy of a bankrupt country once he took over the reins of the Presidency. Many though shared the view that if not for the compulsory fiscal discipline that was mandatory for support from the IMF and their bailout package, Wickremesinghe would not have been able to do any steadying judging by his record as Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Development from 2015 to 2019. They contended that drop in GDP growth from around 6% in 2015 to 2.3% in 2019, increase in the overall debt to close to 90% of GDP in 2019 from around 70% in 2015, arising mainly from a record $ 12 billion International Sovereign Bond borrowing, contributed to the country's bankruptcy in 2022, and that his economic credentials were far from satisfactory.