Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
Tuesday, 16 December 2014 00:02 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Madam Chandrika had the pumpkin converted to a glass carriage with a few SLFP mice fleeing to become horses ready to gallop. Cinderella Maithripala made a single deviation from the fairytale script. Cinderella had a hopper before leaving the castle. Who is Prince Charming?
The grudging endorsement of the incumbent by an undecided political scientist, who describes the presidential contest as one between two ghastly choices, is encouraging for its innocence.
Lest it be misconstrued, this writer is an unashamed partisan advocating change of the executive presidency in hundred days or less. Listening to the trumpets, croaks and grunts of elephants, frogs and crocodiles that occasionally shed a tear or two makes the circus an epochal event.
Maithripala Sirisena, the former General Secretary of the SLFP, with former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga by his side, promised to rekindle the torch of the pristine SLFP.
Last week Tissa Attanayake announced that he switched off the UNP before he left Sirikotha. He was speaking in the sacred city of Anuradhapura, a day after nominations, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa by his side.
Another highlight of the week was a political program broadcast on a private TV channel on Saturday evening. Messrs. Sajith Premadasa, Navin Dissanayake, Ruwan Wijewardene and Wasantha Senanayake participated.
The interlocutors were brutally and brilliantly subjected to rigorous interrogation despite the channel’s unapologetic biases. Although the opposite side was not represented, the four parliamentarians were subjected to many disconcerting questions.
Senanayake confessed to his naiveté in believing that President Rajapaksa would abolish the executive presidency, a promise he extracted before voting for the 18th Amendment. Dissanayake repented the folly of supporting the 18th Amendment.
Wijewardene, though reticent, was unambiguous in his opinion that a party leader should have the authority to act on his own as was the case when the general secretary defected to the Opposition. Aware of the minefield ahead, these three parliamentarians conceded that Premadasa was primus inter pares for the evening.
Absence of choice
The answers given and the questions parried by the Deputy Leader of the UNP revealed what this writer has consistently maintained. The UNP is in the opposition alliance not by choice but in the absence of a choice. The interlocutors were brutally and brilliantly rigorous despite the channel’s unapologetic biases.
The Deputy Leader of the UNP could not hide that the fissures of the UNP remain unresolved. The party was in the opposition alliance for good governance and the restoration of the right for democratic dissent due to events that unfolded with no prodding from the grand old party.
Was the Deputy Leader of the UNP privy to the contents of the MoU signed between the JHU and the common candidate? “No. I am still not aware of its contents,” he said.
Contrast this response to an answer given by Champika Ranawaka to a similar question at a press conference held last week.
Isn’t there a divergence of views between the JHU and the UNP on the abolition of the executive presidency?
“Yes. Please let me explain,” Premadasa stated.
“The UNP demands the abolition of the executive presidency. The JHU wants the office of the executive president totally divested of powers to appoint the judiciary, power to appropriate powers that rightly belong to Parliament, power to meddle with fiscal and monetary policy etc. In short, restoration of democratic norms and good governance is our objective. These are matters to be resolved in Parliament after we elect the common candidate.”
Deputy Leader Premadasa was asked whether he was consulted before the party’s leader picked Kabir Hashim as the new general secretary. No he was not consulted. When did he learn of the appointment? He replied that the leader called him to inform him of the move but by that time he had already received the news from others who sent him SMS messages.
All political commentators, including political scientists, would testify to the exceptional rhetorical skills of the Deputy Leader of the UNP. With his penchant to adorn his pearls of common sense with a string of Sinhala synonyms from a near bottomless repertoire of flowery adjectives he is absolutely capable of avoiding any uncomfortable questions.
He seemed to take delight in confirming that Hashim was not his choice for general secretary. He could have easily outsmarted the inquisitor by demanding to know if the president consulted any other person before announcing the name of Anura Priyadarshana Yapa as the new SLFP general secretary.
He could have demanded to know if the SLFP had a deputy leader.
As for the UNP fielding its own candidate, Sajith Premadasa was disarmingly candid. He believed that a Ranil W candidacy was in the best interest of the party. Now that the party has endorsed the common candidate he would do his best to make him win.
Is the campaign effective at the grassroots level? Premadasa stated that it was yet to be transformed into an effective campaign at the level of the 37,000 villages in the island. It is hoped that this will be so in the coming weeks.
Hidden moves
There is no need for the UNP to quarrel over the fine print in the MoU signed by the common candidate with the JHU. The Leadership Council of the UNP, consisting of men of character sensitive to the public mood for change, may have maneuvered the UNP Leader with an ‘offer he could not refuse’.
It is left to the memoirs of Karu Jayasuriya to disclose whether it was the entire family or the Malik-Mangala-Ravi triumvirate which brought the party back into contemporary political relevance as disclosed by defecting secretary Tissa.
Undoubtedly, the JHU that is responsible for the distance travelled by the opposition alliance in making an abstract constitutional conundrum a national debate on measurable value delivery of food, energy and opportunity.
Those championing a third term for the incumbent are astute enough to recognise the scrawls, if not the writing, on the wall. This is Sri Lanka they affirm. There is no Arab Spring-like movement they insist. Indeed they are right. There is no Tahrir Square in Colombo. The Independence Square is now augmented with an Independence Arcade.
The blurb says that “it’s the dawn of a new era of transformation, as the capital city of Colombo develops to become the wonder city of Asia.”
The rise of a few super rich and the downward slide of everyone else is a necessary evil of neoliberal economic policy. The neoliberal economists would do anything to alleviate poverty. They will do nothing for inequality. It is no Arab Spring. It is a Sri Lankan Winter of Discontent.
The writer is a former journalist and a tourism industry professional with overseas experience.
