Colombo: Sri Lanka’s right-wing President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who seeks re-election this week, describes himself as the “designated survivor” capable of salvaging the economically troubled nation.
Critics, however, say the 75-year-old six-time prime minister has been the beneficiary of circumstances, rising the ranks via power vacuums left by assassinations and resignations.
That saw him take the top job in 2022, when parliament rescued him from political oblivion and elected him as interim leader, after strongman Gotabaya Rajapaksa was ousted as president by protesters furious at the country’s financial collapse.
Wickremesinghe, an ex-journalist turned lawyer, said he had achieved his dream “to be president even for one day”.
The free-market reformist says he needs another term to push through tough austerity measures to support the $2.9 billion IMF bailout loan he negotiated.
Wickremesinghe portrays himself as a veteran leader able to restore the South Asian island’s economy to a stable footing, after inflation spiked to 70 percent and dire food and fuel shortages.
“Voting for an inexperienced leader is a gamble with our future,” Wickremesinghe said in his manifesto.
“This election is a choice between a stable and prosperous future for Sri Lanka, or a return to chaos and uncertainty for every family,” he added.
Wickremesinghe leads the United National Party (UNP), but has presented himself as an independent candidate hoping for broader support.
However, his unpopular moves to double personal taxes and cut energy subsidies have helped the main Marxist party make steady gains.
Long road to power
His first term as prime minister was in 1993, after the assassination of then-president Ranasinghe Premadasa.
A year later his UNP lost parliamentary polls, and Wickremesinghe was pushed out as party chief.
Months later, UNP head Gamini Dissanayake was assassinated during his presidential campaign, and Wickremesinghe returned as party leader.
Wickremesinghe has clung on as UNP leader ever since, overcoming internal revolts after two failed presidential bids.
In 2019, he was challenged again, reluctantly conceding the UNP presidential candidacy to his deputy Sajith Premadasa.
Premadasa - son of murdered president Ranasinghe Premadasa - lost that bid.
But he trounced Wickremesinghe in 2020 parliamentary elections, when his party won 54 seats, becoming leader of the opposition.
Wickremesinghe won one seat.
Now 57-year-old Premadasa is challenging Wickremesinghe again, as one of two key rivals in Saturday’s vote.
Addressing supporters in Colombo, Wickremesinghe said he considered himself the “designated survivor”, a reference to a popular US political television drama.
Critics say Wickremesinghe has protected members of the powerful political Rajapaksa dynasty, who have been accused of graft, kickbacks, syphoning off public finances and murder.
But he does not appear to have their backing in these polls, with the family fielding their contender, 38-year-old Namal Rajapaksa.
Reporter, lawyer, politician
Wickremesinghe had a relatively clean image in Sri Lanka’s often corrupt politics, but it was muddied during his prime ministerial terms between 2015 and 2019.
His administration was rocked by an insider trading scam involving central bank bonds.
His relationship with regional powerhouse and neighbour India is also uneasy, juggling ties with New Delhi and its rival China, the biggest bilateral lender to Colombo.
Born into a wealthy and politically connected family, rooted in publishing and plantations, Wickremesinghe started work as a reporter at one of his family’s newspapers.
He turned to a legal career after the family firm Lake House was nationalised in 1973 by Sirima Bandaranaike, the world’s first female prime minister.
“If Lake House had not been taken over, I would have become a journalist,” Wickremesinghe once told AFP. “So actually, Mrs Bandaranaike sent me to politics.”
Married to Maithree, a university professor of English, they do not have children, and have bequeathed their assets to his old school and universities.
But their impressive library of more than 2,500 books - which he called his “biggest treasure” - was destroyed when their house was torched in the 2022 protests.
