Mahinda’s Style Is Far More Effective Than Ranil’s Substance

By Hema Senanayake -  June 10, 2014

Hema Senanayake

Let me be honest; I borrowed some parts of the above heading. If you change the names of Mahinda and Ranil from the names of President George Bush and Senator Kerry respectively, the above heading is a subheading of an article written by Professor Stanly Fish at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Ranil should learn a big lesson from seemingly a simple point made by Stanly Fish in this article.

Stanly wrote this article just prior to the presidential race between Bush and Kerry and expressed that he worried about the Kerry’s chances of winning even he himself would vote for Kerry. As Stanly suggested the well-known orator/debater Kerry lost at the election. Democrats and most of republicans believed that Kerry could have won.

I am not a political analyst; but to me Ranil is the best candidate the opposition has to be put forward to beat Mahinda in the next presidential election. My feeling is that the JVP, former president Chandrika and TNA could make Ranil the common candidate. But this does not guarantee that he could win. If he wants to win, Ranil must overcome an inherent weakness that he possesses; and if he can’t do it by himself then he must employ a common technique used by most world leaders. The point I am going to make in this regard was briefly discussed by a few friends gathered in the night after a funeral which was visited by Ranil in the morning. The funeral took place in Maharagama in the third week of the last month.                                                                        Read More