• President Wickremesinghe himself is like the symbol of the UNP
• RW’s independent candidacy will not affect UNP or hamper reforms
• SJBers will come back and strengthen the ‘Grand Old Party’ again
• Grassroots UNPers were initially uncomfortable with SLPP alliance
• Now everyone is on board in order to sort out the economic issues
• We need to put aside party politics, come onto a national platform

President Ranil Wickremesinghe believes that he should be an independent candidate for the President Poll 2024 and bring most parties together on a national platform in order to strengthen the country’s economy, said United National Party (UNP) Deputy Leader and Senior Advisor to the President on Climate Change Ruwan Wijewardene, in an interview with The Sunday Morning.

“He believes that this will be the best option, where he comes in as an independent candidate and all the other parties or members of other parties can support his endeavours to strengthen the country’s economy,” he pointed out.

Despite the decimation of the UNP at the last General Election and ongoing attempts to reform the party, Wijewardene opined that the President’s move to contest independently, setting aside the ‘elephant’ symbol, would not hamper the UNP’s revival process. “With this election, there will be people who have left our party and joined the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) who will come back to the party and strengthen the ‘Grand Old Party’ once again,” he asserted.

As for the party’s alliances with its longstanding adversaries, Wijewardene conceded that there was some apprehension from the party grassroots and activists about the President and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP or ‘Pohottuwa’) being on one platform, but that everyone was on board now, “because they know that President Wickremesinghe’s platform right now is to bring everyone together to try and sort out the economic issue”.

Wijewardene also emphasised the importance of setting aside party politics at this juncture, given the key national issues that needed to be addressed: “The cost of living is still very high. Our health sector needs to be strengthened; our education system needs to be reformed; our Judiciary system needs to be looked into and reformed. For all those reforms to be done, there has to be a strong economy. Due to that, I think that we all feel that this is the best time to leave our political parties aside and come onto a national platform so we can sort out all these issues.”

Following are excerpts of the interview:

Why is President Ranil Wickremesinghe contesting as an independent candidate despite being the Leader of the UNP?

The President feels that he should come in as an independent candidate at this point because he has support from Members of Parliament (MPs) from various parties. He also believes that this is the right time to bring in most of the parties together on a national platform because he is looking at economic reforms for the future of the country. 

He believes that this will be the best option, where he comes in as an independent candidate and all the other parties or members of the other parties can come and support his endeavours to strengthen the country’s economy.

But the party has been talking about reforming itself. How will the party symbol not coming up during the election affect its revival?

I believe that President Wickremesinghe himself is like the symbol of the UNP, being the Leader of the UNP, which pretty much the whole country knows. 

At different elections, especially in terms of Presidential Elections, we’ve always gone on a coalition platform and at various points we’ve had different symbols at those elections. At this point also, since he is coming as an independent candidate, all the parties will get together and contest with a common symbol.

However, I don’t believe that this will affect the party as such and it won’t hamper the reform of the party. With this election, there will be people who have left our party and joined the SJB who will come back to the party and strengthen the ‘Grand Old Party’ once again.

This talk of SJBers joining in their numbers has not materialised yet despite being promised several weeks ago. Do you really believe that they are going to return to the party?

I do believe that they are going to come in. These are my former colleagues; I keep in touch with them and I know what they are thinking and what they are feeling at the moment. They are feeling very frustrated inside the party. 

Right now the majority of them also believe that only President Wickremesinghe can sort out the economic issues of the country at the moment and that he will be able to secure the country’s future. On that front, they do feel that they need to support him. I believe that just before the election starts, we will see some of them coming in.

How does the grassroots level party membership view the Party Leader’s decision to contest under an independent symbol?

In the beginning when President Wickremesinghe came in, it was pretty clear that the ‘Pohottuwa’ was also backing him to become the president. I am not going to lie – the grassroots UNPers were feeling a bit uncomfortable. But at the same time they felt elated because their Leader had finally become the President of the country.

When it comes to working on the ground, some of the activists were feeling somewhat apprehensive because the ‘Pohottuwa’ has always been our adversary at every election. It was a bit uncomfortable but now everyone has got on board because they know that President Wickremesinghe’s platform right now is to bring everyone together to try and sort out the economic issue.

Even though you say the intention is to bring everyone together and work for this Presidential Poll and going forward, you don’t see much of a role being played by UNPers. It’s more the SLPPers who are in the forefront. How do you view this?

In the last General Election, the UNP got pretty much wiped out. We only had one seat in Parliament – a National List seat – and that’s what Wickremesinghe went in for. Due to that, the majority of the MPs are from an SLPP background so obviously they come to the forefront. 

Having said that, the UNP has always stuck with Wickremesinghe throughout this time. We were the ones who proposed that he should go to Parliament for that National List seat and in his journey from that, to becoming the Prime Minister and then becoming the President, the UNP has always supported him. We do our share of work.

As the Deputy Leader of the party, are you comfortable with the alliance with the SLPP?

I am. I am actually comfortable because it’s not only the SLPP. There’s the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) coming in, there are so many various parties that are coming in and I believe that right now we need to put party politics aside. The country is just coming out of bankruptcy and there are so many economic issues that need to be sorted out. 

The cost of living is still very high. Our health sector needs to be strengthened; our education system needs to be reformed; our Judiciary system needs to be looked into and reformed. There are so many things.

For all those reforms to be done, there has to be a strong economy and there has to be money in the country to carry out these reforms. Due to that, I think that we all feel that this is the best time to leave our political parties aside and come onto a national platform so we can sort out all these issues.

When you say national platform, is there anyone, any party or individual, the UNP would say no to? Is the party game with taking just about anybody on board?

No. Obviously there are people who have been accused of various things. The ‘Aragalaya’ and everything that happened was because the people had this strong feeling that corruption was the main issue for the economic collapse. 

We all know that it was not only corruption; it was bad decisions and bad policymaking that got the economy down. But there are certain individuals that the public thinks are not good for the future of the country. We don’t want to have every single person coming in.

Is that a collective decision-making process or does the President decide independently? 

It is a collective decision-making process. There are various groups now. We have the UNP, the SLPP, and the SLFP. We all voice our concerns and opinions and the President takes our views into account and makes his decision.

In your role as Senior Advisor to the President on Climate Change, what are the key issues you are looking to address, what are the main ongoing projects towards this end, and what are the plans in place to address the impact of climate change on agriculture?

This is one of the main concerns. Right now in terms of climate change, Sri Lanka is among the top 10-15 countries severely affected. One sector that gets severely affected is agriculture. When agriculture gets affected, food security gets affected. When food security gets affected, the economy gets affected. When the economy gets affected, national security gets affected. These are concerns that the President has taken very seriously. 

A World Bank report says that by 2050 Sri Lanka will lose 1.2% of its GDP due to climate change. There are various programmes for mitigation and adaptation and we’ve been working very closely with various groups. There are solid projects happening on the ground in terms of agriculture and reforestation. 

We have a lot of challenges. When a country’s economy collapses, one of the main casualties is the environment. People try to look for ways of getting resources illegally and that affects the environment. Given those challenges, there is also a push from the Government side and the private sector; there are many groups that are doing a lot of good projects on the ground. There are various projects that are going ahead and the President is very concerned about how this programme should be taken forward. 

What we lack is actual scientific knowledge on climate change. That is one reason why the President was so keen on establishing the International Climate Change University (ICCU) in Sri Lanka. This is not just a normal undergraduate university but a postgraduate research and development based university.

Do you see this university actually getting off the ground?

We do. We have now allocated about 600 acres of land in Kotmale and we’ve been talking to various international universities and organisations. The Korea Eximbank has come in, pledging that it will put in part of the money for the infrastructure. 

We are hoping to sign Memoranda of Understanding with Australian universities as well as other international universities. We’ve been talking to parties from Europe, China, and India and there has been a lot of interest coming in. Right now we are doing the framework.

We are also talking to the local academia, which has been doing a lot of work on local climate change. We are getting feedback from local academics and getting them involved as well. I believe that we will be able to break ground by the end of the year and go forward with building the university.