Old Ranil-Gamini election issue

Former Health Minister and SLFP General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena resurrected a political controversy that had long since been buried — he tied Ranil Wickremesinghe to information from Gamini Dissanayake’s campaign reaching his challenger, Chandrika Kumaratunga, in August 2012.

He made this statement at an election committee meeting held in Siripura, Polonnaruwa. Sirisena, who said he could prove his claims, challenged anyone contesting the allegation to do so openly.

It centered on the 1994 presidential election in which Kumaratunga ran on a People’s Alliance ticket and Dissanayake was the UNP candidate.

Wickremesinghe was then Prime Minister. He resigned from the role following that year’s parliamentary election, in which the People’s Alliance won and Kumaratunga subsequently became Prime Minister on August 19.

Dissanayake was the UNP presidential candidate and Opposition Leader after the general election. As per the records of Parliament, he served from August 25, 1994 — October 24 that year.

He would not see the day of voting.

Sri Lankan presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake was assassinated on 24 October 1994 when a suicide bomber detonated explosives at an election rally in Thotalanga. He was later succeeded by his widow, Srima Dissanayake, as the UNP’s presidential candidate following his death.

This was only 16 days before 9 November, the date of the presidential election.

In the official tally of the election, Kumaratunga polled 4,709,205 votes and Srima Dissanayake got 2,715,283. During the 1994 election Kumaratunga won with a share of 62.28 percent and Dissanayake, in second place, received a share of 35.91 percent.

That charge was far more specific than Sirisena’s broad suggestion that the two politicians had links. Wickremesinghe had told Kumaratunga about Dissanayake’s campaign, Sirisena said.

Kumaratunga rejected the account.

In a statement issued through her office and published in the Daily Mirror on 3 August 2012, she dismissed as untrue an allegation that Wickremesinghe had met her during the 1994 campaign and revealed details of Dissanayake’s campaign strategy.

She also dismissed the claim that Wickremesinghe had spoken to her about Dissanayake or the UNP’s campaign plans.

Kumaratunga’s office reported that Wickremesinghe had met her after she became Prime Minister. It termed the meeting as a courtesy call by the outgoing PM.

That resulted, in the end, in two competing narratives on what really happened.

Sirisena alleged that he had evidence for his statement. But Kumaratunga said Wickremesinghe had never told her.

The official election record does not settle that piece of the controversy. It detailed the candidates, Dissanayake’s death and his successor being nominated before the election result. However, the election record does not seem to provide additional evidence of Wickremesinghe sharing campaign information with Kumaratunga.

This also reminded us of 2012, when Sirisena and Wickremesinghe were political foes.

Sirisena was then a senior minister in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government as well as SLFP General Secretary. Wickremesinghe was leading the UNP.

That was the twist that returned a few years later.

In a sudden turn, with the backing of the UNP, Sirisena was able to challenge the then incumbent regime in the 2015 presidential election as a common opposition candidate. He was elected and appointed Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister.

The two would later be embroiled in the 2018 constitutional crisis, when Sirisena dismissed Wickremesinghe from the office of PM and replaced him with Mahinda Rajapaksa. Wickremesinghe eventually returned to office.

However, the 2012 charge was linked to an event long before — an alleged incident during the 1994 presidential campaign.

The allegation levelled by Sirisena has been reported in the papers along with Kumaratunga’s response to him. The particulars of the 1994 election verify what transpired and the outcome, but do not prove that any information regarding Wickremesinghe’s UNP campaign was passed on to Kumaratunga via him.