About a decade ago, I had had enough of Ranil Wickremesinghe. By then he had gutted the UNP—my party for most of my adult life—by elevating friends and cronies. Mahinda Rajapaksa, meanwhile, was in full authoritarian bloom. So when Maithripala Sirisena, not RW, became the common candidate, I was overjoyed. The joy didn’t last.
Months into office, the bond scam torpedoed any faith in “Good Governance.” Four years of trench warfare between MY3 and RW paralysed the state and froze the economy. By 2018, only with Mangala Samaraweera at his side did RW finally push reforms to stem the financial rot that began under Rajapaksa’s borrowing binge. But then came Easter 2019—the final blow. The public never forgave RW for the infighting that left the country exposed.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa binned RW’s reforms despite warnings from his own Finance Ministry. COVID followed. By April 2022, Sri Lanka was bankrupt. Inflation hit 70%. Power cuts stretched to 18 hours. Middle-class anger boiled into the Aragalaya. After mobs attacked Galle Face protesters on May 9, the country tipped into anarchy. While others babbled about caretaker governments, RW was the lone voice in Parliament spelling out a way forward. By July 9, Gotabaya fled. Ranil slipped into the vacuum, deployed troops, and restored order. Then, with consummate cynicism, he courted the very Rajapaksas he’d opposed for decades to become caretaker President. To pay them back, he cracked down on the very protests that had lifted him up.
For a moment, he was at his peak. He backed monetary reforms, closed the IMF deal, and secured debt talks. Inflation fell to 1%. Reserves climbed by $4.5 billion. But the price was steep: sharing power with the Rajapaksa machine, elevating crooks like Lohan Ratwatte, and bulldozing the Constitutional Council to make a thug like Deshabandu police chief. The public wanted system change. He gave them business as usual.
So, even as I voted for RW in the last election, AKD’s win was inevitable. People were done. Ranil’s transactional politics had run out of currency. He once cut deals with the JVP itself—earning them the nickname “Red Elephants”—but that ended when he had nothing left to offer. Today, with AKD’s NPP riding high, he is a liability, not an asset.
Which brings us to his imprisonment. Ranil always used corruption as a tool of power. Now it has caught up with him. The “joint opposition” may howl, but the public won’t rally to a man they long ago abandoned. This is the end of his road. He was famously unsentimental about allies and supporters. We owe him the same.
