Since his office was now to behave in the manner of an executive prime ministerial centre which would support him as virtual head of government, Ranil set about restructuring the order of business in the house. He wanted papers and callers dealt with in a systematic, organized way. It was not going to be business as usual when the PM’s office had been a post office passing-on all and sundry to the all-powerful executive president’s office for decision. The `buck’, as Harry Truman had said, would stop here.
The first thing Ranil did was to ask me to drop in at the prime minister’s office in Britain and spend a day there looking at how No 10 (Downing Street) was organized. He thought that would be the closest model to follow. So on a trip back from Washington I spent some time at No 10. Alastair Campbell, the media guru to Prime Minister Tony Blair was not available that day but all the other heads of divisions were most helpful. The essential point I got from No 10 Downing Street was the priority the Prime Minister, Tony Blair attached to information and the media. It was all about keeping the public informed, and the prime minister’s thinking, on the major issues of the day.
The strategies included even the manner of presentation and the timing of the presentation of news to the public. A tip they suggested was to have a particular item of good news held for an appropriate action and released at that time. In a way, it was like having something in hand to be given to the media on a once-a-day basis. Interaction with the media was deemed so important in the modern prime minister’s office that Campbell or an assistant would meet with the media corps sometimes even twice a day.
Ranil built on the information I brought back from London and the Media Center at the Gramodaya in Kollupitiya and the institution of a government spokesman came out of that experience. What we clearly lacked was our own Alastair Campbell, who had earned the sobriquet of the ‘spin doctor’, although a few external advisors from Britain were immensely helpful and generous with lots of good advise. The media team was an important part of our overseas visits. There was always a good mix of state and private media men and women on the trip and they covered the news very speedily and fully, so that those back home had a regular view of what Ranil and his troupe were doing abroad. It was expensive, especially all the phone calls and sending of voice cuts and ‘photo opps’ but the public relations aspect necessitated it.
Ranil’s interest in the media and media reform
Ranil’s own background with the media, extending back through his father Esmond Wickremesinghe, Managing Director of the Associated Newspaper of Ceylon Ltd, and further back to his grandfather, the famous D R Wijewardena who was founder of Lake House, had already impelled him to set up new structures and mechanisms relating to the media. There were at least three specific areas on which he acted very fast. First of all was the legislative framework for the media. Following a series of regular meetings with the editors (this was to take place on a monthly basis), the journalists association and the Free. Media Movement he got passed through Parliament, legislation which was of extreme value for the creation of a conducive media environment that would match the highest standards required of a free media.
This legislation was to cover the concept of freedom of expression, amend the existing law regarding criminal defamation which acted as a constraint to the free expression of views, the setting up of a Press Complaints Commission to replace a moribund Press Council and to establish a Press Institute which would set, from within, standards for journalists to follow, and update their training.
The second approach was to establish a fully equipped and staffed government media centre. This was on the premise that the press was not going to be curbed again with emergency regulations which had censored the press effectively for long periods. Since a virtually free press was going to be stimulated, Ranil felt that a strong mechanism should be in place for the propagation of the government’s own position. The third idea was to work towards a gradual broad-basing of the state-owned media. This had been continually abused by the government in power.
His design for the PM’s office involved a strict separation of functions between the purely political and personal side, and the official. The secretary (myself) would in theory exercise overall supervision. But I was insulated against political and personal pressures by such issues being put up to the party and public affairs unit handled by the private secretary and two or three confidantes associated with party headquarters.
My work on the official side would be handled from the Flower Road office. Ranil left this work to be handled entirely at my discretion. As a link to him at Temple Trees, where he had a very modest set of rooms to work in as an office, he wanted me to find working space in one of the upper-floor bedrooms at Temple Trees. Later on with the help from the US$ 100 million ‘Indian line of credit’ we managed to computerise and link our two separate offices on the internet. Ranil was always very clued-in on technology and especially recognized the value of ICT (Information Communication Technology) as a tool to bring government services to the people.
The Batalanda case
One of the increasing trends in political life has been for the leader to be caught up in a public commission of inquiry. These usually refer to decisions and actions taken while one was in government and are political, in that they are brought up at the time that the person is out of office. It happened in the case of W Dahanayake around the conspiracy behind the assassination of Bandaranaike; to Sirimavo regarding her extension of the emergency, to ostensibly keep herself in power, and now in the case of Ranil Wickremesinghe about some incidents during ‘the period of terror’ between 1989 and 1992.
Ranil had to face a commission of inquiry while he was the leader of the opposition in 1998 and when he was poised to contest at the forthcoming presidential elections. It was referred to popularly as the ‘Batalanda Case’ and concerned certain activities which took place at the Batalanda Housing Scheme in the Kelaniya electorate. Ranil had used one of the bungalows in the housing scheme as an office during his period as minister of industries and scientific affairs and of youth and employment.
The specific allegation was that he was aware of certain illegal activities which took place in some of the houses in the Batalanda Housing Scheme, which were used by the police as places of unlawful detention, including the torture of persons suspected of being JVP insurgents. The commission was appointed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga in September 1995. It was given several extensions and the report was finally presented to the president only in March 1998.
The only charge against Ranil was under section (e) of the terms of reference which mandated the Commission to inquire into whether any officer or any other person was responsible for the commission of any criminal offences under any law or the use of undue influence or misuse or abuse of power in relation of any of the issues connected thereto. Ranil had to appear personally before the commission in a widely publicized session to answer the allegations against him. All that the commission could find against was that as minister of industries and scientific affairs, he had given directions regarding the allocation and lease of houses at the Batalanda Housing Scheme (which were later used as places of unlawful detention), and had at meetings given directions pertaining to the conduct of the police relating to anti-subversive activity.
Soon afterwards, Ranil won at the general election of December 2001, thereupon vindicating his conduct in the eyes of the public. Batalanda surfaced again in April 2004 in the TV debates” that have now become a popular spectacle each evening at election time. The relevance and value of these ‘inquisitorial’ inquiries appointed under the Commissions of Inquiry Act No 17 of 1948 remain moot.
Government hospitality
Ranil took great pains to see that the hospitality and the social side of the prime minister’s office functioned properly. The heavy work schedule he set himself required that there be regular working lunches and dinners at Temple Trees. The organization of these were the responsibility of Indrani Wijeratne and Hema Pieris and much effort and time was expended in delivering quality products. Maithree Wickramasinghe provided invaluable support in advising and directing how such receptions and social engagements should be done.
The decor of the public areas – the sitting and dining halls in particular – now took on an extraordinary elegance. The dinning room equipment and the curtaining and ornamentation, which over time had become worn out and stale, were modernized. The ornaments and paintings, as well as the cutlery used on formal occasions were the personal property of the Wickremesinghe’s. The kitchens were- redesigned and new kitchen staff recruited. Ranil and Maithree shared the view that rather than hire Hilton and Oberoi to provide the catering (at enormous cost) high quality capacity should be developed from within so that Temple Trees itself could do it appropriately and without the high overheads.
It needed bringing in chefs to replace the old-time ‘bungalow keeper’ but the effort was worth it. Complimentary letters soon began to come in from those who had dined at Temple Trees. The staid printed menu card on glossy paper gave way to a highly imaginative unevenly cut, rolled-up little scroll tied with coir string. On opening up you read the menu, hand-written in italics on rough, recycled elephant dung paper! It often provided a delightful, if somewhat unusual, opening conversational topic.
The beginning of the end of a chapter – November 4, 2003
Ranil knew that although he had won convincingly in the 2001 elections gaining a total of 109 seats to the PA’s 77, in terms of the 1978 Constitution, which gave the president enormous power, he would have to manage his victory somehow in the difficult political system of `cohabitation’ which was implied whenever the presidents and prime ministers came from different party groupings. This was the first occasion when the process was in fact going to be tried out, barring a few months in the Wijetunga presidency when D B was literally a ‘lame duck’.
Ranil and Chandrika had been childhood friends but the rivalry which existed between the Bandaranaikes on the one hand and the Senanayakes, Jayewardenes and now Wickremesinghes were well known. It was almost Shakespearean in its working out and there would be many rivers to cross to maintain the full six-year tenure of office to which he was entitled by his electoral victory.
His first task was to obtain from the president all of the ministries which were necessary for the exercise of full governmental power.
In the middle of December 2001 at Cabinet formation, Ranil was so strong in the country – his “I will give you peace” slogan having such an overwhelming response – that he clearly had the upper hand. There was some resistance from President Chandrika to the handing over of defence, which she claimed was her inherent responsibility as the president. But since Ranil had a clear mandate from the people to enter into political negotiations with the LTTE and establish an early cease-fire, that authority over the military establishment was absolutely essential. So he was able to wrest the defence ministry from the president’s hands and place Tilak Marapana, a one-time attorney-general of the country to be in charge of the portfolio.
The president had apparently reminded Ranil that there was the precedent of D B Wijetunga in 1994 retaining the defence portfolio while she was the prime minister in an earlier cohabitationary set-up. Ranil had countered that the two situations were not on all fours – D B having only a very short tenure of office to go before the presidential election.
The ‘Cohabitation’ between the president and Ranil did not work at all well during the months that followed. There were basic differences of policy, behaviour and styles of management between the two and rather than collaboration there was opposition, competition and alienation. Cohabitation envisaged a Cabinet meeting with the president as chair. However more often than not, the president was absent and the Cabinet had to take its decisions without her presence in the chair.
On the few occasions that she was present there was acrimonious debate between her and the more vociferous members of the Cabinet on a range of very political issues. The question of the procurement of 44 security vehicles at great cost after the assassination attempt on the president in 1999, came in for a lot of flak. Similarly, an allegation that the president was taping everything that happened in Cabinet through a secret listening device that she had hidden in her handbag raised tempers and kept her embittered. The Cabinet was one of the largest ever and often it was her, the president alone, standing up against many very critical members of the Cabinet.
(Excerpted from ‘Rendering Unto Caesar’ by Bradman Weerakoon) ✍️
