How bullish prediction for Premadasa backfired on political astrologers

‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves’

Astrologers who incorrectly predicted that New Democratic Front (NDF) candidate Sajith Premadasa would emerge victorious at the 2019 presidential election now claim confusion about Mr. Premadasa’s horoscope led to the fiasco.

A group of astrologers even held a media conference in the final week of the campaign to predict that Mr. Premadasa would win the election with a clear majority.

Explaining “what went wrong,” astrologer K. A. U. Sarathchandra, who was among those who spoke at that media conference, told the Sunday Times that at the time he made his public prediction, he had been under the impression that the NDF candidate’s “lagna” ( zodiac sign) was Vrushaba (Taurus).

This meant that the planets were strongly aligned in favour of Mr. Premadasa and that he had a “Raja Yogaya” that would have enabled him to win the p r e s i d e n c y, M r. Sarathchandra claimed.

“However, it was only later that I learned that there was confusion surrounding his lagna and that some other astrologers had made predictions for him based on the Mithuna (Gemini) lagna after looking at his horoscope. He could never have won if his lagna was Mithuna,” the seer said.

Mr. Sarat h chandra claimed the problem was that Mr. Premadasa did not know whether his zodiac sign was Vrushaba or Mithuna. In such a situation, astrologers will always struggle to make accurate predictions, he argued. Mr. Sarathchandra, who has been an astrologer for 25 years, claimed he had correctly predicted the government change that came about due to the constitutional crisis of 2018.

“I also correctly predicted that it would fail and that Ranil Wickremesinghe would become prime minister,” he insisted. “Many are blaming us now, saying we got it wrong and that astrology is all fake. That is not true. We went by the information given to us,” he said.

Mr. Sarathchandra, who has offices in Battaramulla, Kurunegala, Gampaha, Galle and Ratnapura, claimed he had received threatening phone calls following the election. “I’ve stopped going to my offices in Kurunegala, Ratnapura and Galle since some have threatened to harm me if I went there,” he lamented.

The problem with Mr. Premadasa’s horoscope was that he had been born at a point in time when Vrushaba moved into Mithuna, said astrologer Sarathchandra Botalage, adding that this was what had created the confusion.

He also claimed the horoscope of Gotabaya Rajapaksa that had been given to them had contained false information, too. “It is clear now that Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s horocope contained very strong Raja Yoga. But this was not present in the information given to us,” he said.

Mr. Botalage scoffed at accusations that astrology was fake, saying he correctly predicted the 2015 presidential election result. “I said someone from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party would win. I know you will say that both candidates who contested were from the SLFP, but Maithripala Sirisena broke away from the party and contested under the swan symbol, only to become chairman of the SLFP once he became president. So my prediction was correct. We erred this time owing to wrong information.”

Astrologer Kalyani Menike said she too had forecast her prediction of a Premadasa win based on his lagna being Vrushaba.

She said if the lagna had been Mithuna she would never have said he would win as a good period for Mithuna would only arrive after 2022. “We based our predictions from the horoscope we received,” she said, but added the defeat did not mean that Sajith Premadasa did not have “wasana guna” ( good fortune) on his side.

“He polled more than 5.5 million votes, didn’t he? That’s more than any other votes ever polled by any UNP candidate,” she remarked.