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Raja Pakshikaya, yours is a family forest
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It would have been amusing to read the column by someone calling himself ‘Raja Pakshikaya’ in The Sunday Times last week, if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the issues he (or she!) raises are of a serious nature but Raja Pakshikaya attempts to wish them away with a poor attempt at humour. The thrust of Raja Pakshikaya’s argument seems to be that our candidate Maithripala Sirisena has nothing in common with persons such as Ranil Wickremesinghe, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sarath Fonseka and Athuraliye Rathana Thera with whom he is now aligned.
Hasn’t Raja Pakshikaya missed the obvious, which millions of his countrymen are rallying around to? Yes, they all have different manners and wear different hair styles but the common theme, my friend, is that they all want the Executive Presidency and its current incumbent to become part of history.
Raja Pakshikaya says Maithri will not keep his promises. All I would ask him to do is not to judge others by the standards of his leader. And, the range of forces that are gathering momentum around Maithri are such that he will have to. And, as Raja Pakshikaya himself says, Maithri is a decent man.
Raja Pakshikaya says that Maithri is trying to hoodwink people, because he cannot pass legislation in a hundred days to abolish the Executive Presidency as he does not have a two thirds majority in Parliament. Raja Pakshikaya is displaying his ignorance — which is a hallmark of his leader’s regime. My personal guess is that when Maithri wins, there will be enough rats who will desert the sinking UPFA ship, to give us a two-thirds majority. If Raja Pakshikaya disagrees, may I ask whether the names Digambaram, Radhakrishnan and Hirunika ‘duwa’ mean anything to him?
Today, the UPFA is afraid to send its representatives to even a political Tv chat show not knowing which one will go and ‘let the side down’. Everyone in the UPFA is looking at the other with great suspicion. Raja Pakshikaya obviously didn’t get very good grades in history at school, so let me help him out here: In 2010, the general election was held 72 days after the presidential election. So a hundred days is ample time to abolish the executive presidency, if we have a President who wants to do so.
Raja Pakshikaya also argues that the Executive Presidency is needed because it helped us win the war. As you might have guessed by now, I’m no great fan of President Mahinda Rajapaksa but I will give him credit where it is due: his resistance to calls to end the military offensive was a key factor there.
But that also demolishes Raja Pakshikaya’s argument. Why, four Presidents before him had the same powers (and JR had similar majority in Parliament) but they couldn’t end the war. So, it is not the Presidency that ended the war, it was the policy — which a Prime Minister could also do. Winston Churchill won World War II being Prime Minister. Adolph Hitler, on the other hand lost the war while being, well, an Executive President or more.
Raja Pakshikaya defends the First family’s role saying they were elected, except Gota who won the war. What we have now is not a family tree but a family forest! Yes, all the Rajapaksas except Gota were elected but why give one the control of Parliament and the others 85 per cent of all state funds? Raja Pakshikaya then laments that the Opposition, particularly Chandrika Kumaratunga, is motivated by revenge. Being a green-blooded UNPer of the ‘kepuvath kola paata’ type, I wouldn’t go out on a limb to defend Chandrika, but Ranil is smart enough to know that his enemy’s enemy is his friend!
As for the argument about being motivated by revenge, to use Raja Pakshikaya’s own words, “isn’t that cute”? He should know all about revenge because his regime specialises on the subject. Now, don’t tell me that what happened to the JVP, Mangala Samaraweera, Sarath N. Silva – all who helped the President become the President — Sarath Fonseka and Shirani Bandaranayaka is not about revenge! Just look at the way ‘Maithri’ is getting roasted now in the state media.
So, Raja Pakshikaya wants the ‘stability’ of his regime to continue despite a “few inevitable hiccups”. What are these hiccups’ he is referring to, I wonder? Rampant corruption, the collapse of law and order, a puppet Police and a rubber-stamp Judiciary, mortgaging future generations to the Chinese and a thriving drug trade, perhaps?
And what is this stability, I ask? To be able to call brother-in-law Nishantha to book a flight to America, get cousin Prasanna to clear the airport for you and have had cousin Jaliya make all the arrangements in Washington, maybe? Raja Pakshikaya, none of these people were elected, were they? They hold office at the whim and pleasure of the country’s Numero Uno. As the JVP leader once said the security guard at SriLankan Airlines has better educational qualifications than the Chairman, except that he is not the King’s brother-in-law.
So, there it is in a nutshell for you, Raja Pakshikaya. This is why the people of this country are demanding change. Yes, Mahinda and Gota won the war and that is why they were trusted with the reins of the country in 2010. Sadly, that trust has been betrayed. As one detractor said, the beautiful damsel ‘Lanka’ was rescued from the treacherous LTTE, only to be raped thereafter.
I note that in Raja Pakshikaya’s entire tirade against the opposition, the most he says against Maithri is that he is “misguided”. Doesn’t that say volumes about our man, my friend? Maithri knows that if he loses at the poll, he loses it all but he is willing to take that risk because that is the right thing to do.
Raja Pakshikaya says ‘Maithri’ is day-dreaming by thinking of that old Sinhala saying about how a farmer is fit to be king once the mud is washed off his body. The Maha Nayake of Malwatte no less, has endorsed this saying clearly throwing his weight behind “Maithri’s’ candidacy. A more apt saying for Raja Pakshikaya now would be ‘raja kam kalath, kala kam paladey’ (your acts will haunt you, even if you are King).
So, Raja Pakshikaya, pack your bags and say your goodbyes because the end is nigh.
