Ronil’s road ahead will not be smooth

Junius Richard Jayawardene was the second President and seventh Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. He ruled the island nation for 12 consecutive years in the seventies and eighties of the last century. He is known as an extremely cunning politician. Many people called him ‘cunning fox’. In personal identity, he is the uncle of Sri Lanka’s new president Ranil Wickremesinghe. On Wednesday, Ranil was elected the president of the country in crisis. According to many, Ranil is more ‘cunning’ than his uncle.
Ranil replaced Gotabaya Rajapaksha who fled in the face of massive mass agitation. Before this, he has handled the responsibility of the Prime Minister six times. Last May Gotabaya appointed Ranil to the post after the resignation of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksha in the face of economic crisis and protests. Ranil was elected as the President of Sri Lanka for the first time today after serving as the Acting President after Gotabaya fled the country.

Ronil’s long-held dream was to become the head of state of Sri Lanka.

Ranil came to politics by his hand. Now Ranil has to deal with the worst economic crisis since independence. Before that, he also has to face the challenge of gaining the trust of the protesters.

According to many analysts, Ranil has vast experience in running the country. But the road ahead will not be very smooth for him. Because the dominant Rajapakse family has fallen in the face of public anger in the country. Ranil is known to the protesters as close to the Rajapakse family. He even won the presidential election with the support of Gotabaya’s party. Therefore, the protestors seeking change in the country’s political system may consider him untrustworthy. This is the big challenge in front of Ronil.

Ranil was born in a rich political family. Initially he did journalism. Ronil’s family business was nationalized in the 1970s by former Sri Lankan and world’s first woman Prime Minister Srimavo Bandaranaike. Later came to politics. Ranil said in an interview, ‘I wanted to do journalism. But Bandar Naik dragged me into politics.