Meet Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, a key figure in Sri Lanka political standoff

If, as Speaker of Sri Lankan Parliament, Jayasuriya had wavered even for a second, the leader of the joint opposition Mahinda Rajapaksa, would have been PM, both de facto and de jure

Politics in Sri Lanka is poised at a critical cusp. One of the men steering events is the Speaker of Sri Lankan Parliament, Karu Jayasuriya.  

Just consider. If, as Speaker, Jayasuriya had wavered even for a second, the leader of the joint opposition, Mahinda Rajapaksa, would have been prime minister, both de facto and de jure. If Jayasuriya had given MPs the slightest nudge, they would have scurried to the Rajapaksa fold in droves (some did nevertheless, and most returned). And if he had not exercised his authority to enforce a voice vote that confirmed that 122 MPs out of 225 supported Ranil Wickre-mesinghe as prime minister, Sri Lanka would not have been able to resist the executive authoritarianism of President Maithripala Sirisena.

So who is Karu Jayasuriya?

His entire political life (he’s 78) Jayasuriya has been with the United National Party (UNP), a west-inclined, pro-market party, in contradistinction to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) that has been committed to socialism and a command and control planned economy. One of the UNP’s most famous leaders was J R Jayewardene, the legendary president who forged the Indo-Sri Lanka peace accord, seeking to end the Tamil insurgency led by the guerrilla group, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and invited the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to the island nation. JR, as he was known, was succeeded by President Ranasinghe Premadasa who ordered the IPKF out of Sri Lanka on the grounds that elections could not be held as long as foreign forces were on Sri Lankan soil. The IPKF had to return without being able to achieve its target: The elimination of the LTTE, root and branch. 

But Sri Lanka was facing not one but two insurgencies. If the LTTE held unquestioned sway over the Tamil-dominated northern and eastern provinces, in the Sinhala south, it was the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) that was committed to overthrowing the Sri Lankan state via armed struggle and was deeply influenced by the ideas of Marxist theorist Leon Trotsky. Those in India talking about urban Naxals should read a history of the JVP to educate themselves: Those were the real urban Naxals, responsible for the radicalisation and death of thousands of promising Sinhala men and women. Caught in an insurgency pincer between these two, the country was living hand to mouth, dependent on loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Facing a severe economic crisis, Jayewardene decided that integrating Sri Lanka into the global market economy was the only solution. He set up a Presidential Privatisation Commission. Jayasuriya, who had gone into the shipping industry after his education, was made a member. When Premadasa came to power, despite dire warnings from the JVP,  he gave Jayasuriya the task of privatising United Motors, an automotive manufacturing company that was nationalised in 1972. The ‘peoplisation’ (the phrase coined by Premadasa) of state-run enterprises was a conditionality laid down by the IMF.

Jayasuriya himself was caught in a pincer. He would get death threats from the JVP, but he knew he had to carry out the task handed to him. Premadasa was assassinated in 1993, Jayasuriya survived and went on from strength to strength — and his greatest ally at the time was the then industries minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Between then and now, Jayasuriya has been on the boards of at least 50 companies, has restructured and run many of them. One of them, Mackie, is responsible for at least 7 to 8 per cent of Sri Lanka’s export earnings. He has been Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Germany and Austria, and later, mayor of Colombo. But much more than that, what counts is Jayasuriya’s acceptance among the Sinhala Buddhists, especially the Buddhist clergy which is a greater political force in Sri Lanka than people realise. In fact, one of the first initiatives that Jayasuriya took when Sri Lanka plunged into the Sirisena-created crisis was to call on the leaders of the various Sanghas to explain what was happening.

Many believe that Wickremesinghe should have yielded to Jayasuriya a long time ago and now, it is unlikely that Jayasuriya will get the opportunity to have a stab at the top job. On the other hand, J R Jayewardene did become president when he was a youthful 71.

Watch the man and what he does. He’s good at it!