An Open Letter to the President

Photo courtesy of Lankasara

Your Excellency,

It has been 19 months since you took office as president and 17 months since you formed the government with a two-thirds majority. In this context, I think I can share some details with you as a Sri Lankan, beyond being a Tamil.

When you were in the opposition, I was one of those who was amazed by the dedicated politics of you and your colleagues Bimal Ratnayake, Sunil Handunnetti and Vijitha Herath. Due to the anti-Tamil activities of your party, the JVP, I would not have voted on any other occasion unless our Tamil political leaders had told us to vote for you or any of the others due to the compulsion of the political situation. Accordingly, I state at the outset that I did not vote for you nor for any candidate from your party in the 2024-2025 presidential, parliamentary or local government elections.

Your election manifesto was also designed to confirm your anti-Tamil activities. It did not recognise that the post-independence government structure did not recognise the Tamils ​​as a national community but systematically ignored and discriminated against us and that is why our country was surrounded by violence for 76 years (1948-2024) and your manifesto was designed to deceive my people who are yearning for a peaceful and dignified life by saying the false slogan “We are all Sri Lankans” to cover their eyes. However, it cannot be denied that the association of people like Dr. Harini Amarasuriya with the NPP had sown a false hope in my mind. It is a bitter but not surprising fact that even that hope was shattered in a couple of months.

The reason for this long preface is that, although I knew that even the legitimate demands of the Tamils ​​would not fall on your ears, I had hoped that you would work wholeheartedly for the progress of our country. However, that hope was weakened after observing the way you handled Asoka Ranwala’s fake doctorate. You should have demanded his resignation and publicly apologised to the public, saying: “A mistake has been made; we apologise.” But your comrades presented arguments that justified his lie. If the no-confidence motion had not been moved, Asoka Ranwala, who has not proven his academic qualifications to this day, would have continued to hold the position of speaker.

Next, the way you handled the allegation regarding the 323 containers that were released without following proper procedures, strengthened the doubts that had been raised about your honesty.

Meanwhile, the Director (Legal), Presidential Secretariat, your very office, publicly justified the Prevention of Terrorism Act within a month of your assuming office, despite your repeated promises to repeal it along with other repressive laws. Thus, you have been acting and expressing opinions inconsistently on many basic but very important issues that you had convinced the people to be your position before taking power. All of this is an act of violating the mandate given to you by the people who wanted change. These are seen as revealing your arrogance and ignorance.

Your actions, which once projected the idea that “we are superior and all others are thieves” and used that narrative to secure power, now appear to have surpassed even those you once accused.

I have never had faith in the other things you have said. However, I firmly believed that you would act loyally to the mandate of the people regarding the eradication of bribery and corruption. That trust, which had been weakened by your handling of the Asoka Ranwala credential fraud, has completely disappeared with the Kumara Jayakody corruption case and the coal import scam.

The good governance government, which came to power on the basis of the Rajapaksas’ corruption and abuse of power, lost its legitimacy by engaging in a currency scam the very next month it came to power. After that, all the activities undertaken by them were viewed with suspicion by the people. Using that, in just four years, the Rajapaksas seized power again. The reason I remind you of this here is that it does not take long for our people to think that a known devil is better than an unknown angel. The regime changes that occurred in 2015 and 2019 were not designed to bring about structural change. But the change of government brought about by the people in 2024, despite the different thinking about change, was done in anticipation of some change. Against that backdrop, you were given the mandate and opportunity of the people to bring about structural changes that would improve the country.

These reforms are most achievable during the political honeymoon period when a newly elected government still enjoys strong public goodwill and acceptance. In this early phase, even politically sensitive or controversial measures are more feasible as they are more likely to be received with trust rather than resistance. However, the bitter truth is that in the last 17 months, the structural changes you promised have not brought about any difference. You have only carried out activities to fulfill the conditions of the IMF and receive funds.

People are often accustomed to voting for familiar parties. However in 2024, driven by the hope for change, they chose to support you, a party that had never previously held power. Yet your conduct in office now appears to be disappointing those who voted for you in trust and faith and risks eroding public confidence in the very idea of change. Alarmingly, the signs of this erosion are already visible. Repeating the same rhetoric in a subdued tone achieves little. As the saying goes, actions speaks louder than words; what is required now is less rhetoric and more delivery.

At least in this time-honored situation, when you fail to realise your responsibility and act as a president, not a politician, you will go down in history not only as a president who violated the people’s mandate but also as the one who destroyed the people’s hope for change.