Oh Diana, who art thou?

State Minister Diana Gamage is accused of serious crimes with reference to the Citizenship Act. She is also accused of falsifying documents including passports, birth certificates and national identity cards. It is alleged that she is not a Sri Lankan citizen, not even a dual citizen of Sri Lanka and alleged to have forged documents to obtain identity documents to impersonate citizenship. 

She was nominated through the National List to Parliament in 2020. A writ application has now been filed in the Court of Appeal seeking an order to disqualify Gamage’s seat in Parliament and the Criminal Investigations Department has been ordered by the Colombo Chief Magistrate to investigate the alleged crimes.

In any other self-respecting democracy such a scandal would have rocked the government to its very core. A member of the Government, a State minister at that, as a foreign national had falsified official Government documents and become a member of parliament. It is nothing but an extraordinary development, a high crime that can tantamount to treason against the Republic. Yet, in Sri Lanka, the state of affairs and standards expected of elected officials are so low that this revelation is hardly even making news. It is astonishing that State Minister Gamage, who is also alleged to be known by several other names as well, has not found it fit to resign from her position in Government. It is even more astonishing that President Ranil Wickremesinghe or any other leading figure in the regime has not seen it necessary to either sack her or request her to step down, at least until the legal proceedings are concluded. 

While one may argue that every person has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty there is also the principle of public trust which is supposedly held by those elected to office. Gamage who was nominated through the national list of the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya party in 2020 only to immediately cross over to the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Government after entering Parliament. As a member of parliament, Gamage and others are expected to uphold the public trust that has been temporarily entrusted to them through an electoral mandate. Clearly such principles are alien to Sri Lanka’s current political ethos.

Such lack of basic decency is not surprising when one takes a quick glance at the current executive branch of the State. Prasanna Ranatunga, a convicted fraudster, serves in the cabinet without any qualms having been found guilty by the High Court of extortion and solicitation of bribes. Tiran Alles, the minister for public security and the man in charge of the police department is accused of facilitating a money transaction between the Mahinda Rajapaksa political campaign and the LTTE, a designated terrorist organisation, to enact a boycott of the presidential elections in 2005. That boycott in the North and the East ensured the defeat of then opposition candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe. These are but a few examples of the appalling characters that occupy the highest levels of the executive branch these days. In such company state minister Diana Gamage may not feel any compulsion or sense of decency to resign.

Irrespective of the low bar set by the current executive, it is the duty of the public to aspire to higher standards. We must demand from these public figures a level of morality, integrity, and basic decency that we as the Sri Lankan people deserve. Diana Gamage or whatever her name actually is, is clearly unsuitable to be a member of parliament. It is imperative that she and many others of her ilk are prevented from desecrating Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions, which even with their many flaws and numerous challenges have managed to survive for over 90 years.