5th Column

My dear JR,
Even though you are in the Land of Never Return, I thought I must write to you to let you know that one of your legacies to the nation was changed forever this week after 37 long years: your all powerful Executive Presidency was modified and no longer looks like what you wanted it to be.
One of the people responsible for the change is your nephew who you introduced to politics 40 years ago. The other is a simple farmer from Polonnaruwa who now leads the country. In fact, it seems as if your nephew has got the ‘Perakum Yugaya’ that he wanted, but in a slightly different way!

JR, we remember how you told us when you introduced your Constitution that we needed a strong government, not one that was swept out of office every five years. Do you also remember how you used to boast that all you couldn’t do was to turn a male into a female and a female in to a male?

There was some logic in that at that time but events didn’t quite turn out that way — and some governments, including yours, were too strong for our liking. A male did turn in to a female when Satellite suddenly appeared on the scene and became the President who, until then, had been a male!

Satellite promised to abolish what she called your ‘bahubootha’ Constitution and gave herself a six month deadline to do so. Most people believed her and the rathu sahodarayas even withdrew their man from the contest, thinking that she would honour her promise but that was not to be either.

Despite her broken promise, the people elected her once more thanks to a bomb blast at the eleventh hour and Satellite went on to stay in her job for eleven years — and would have stayed on for one more year had it not been for that chap Sarath intervening and paving the way for Mahinda maama’s entry.

Mahinda maama liked the job so much — especially after another Sarath won the war for him and Mahinda maama was hailed as the saviour of the nation — that he changed the rules you had made: Instead of having a limit of two terms of office, anyone could hold office for any number of times.

He looked the other way while his minions in Parliament engaged in all kinds of shenanigans and induced some from the Green side to join him, tempting them with an unlimited supply of cabinet ministries. In return, they gave him a two-thirds majority and he passed all the laws he wanted!

Unfortunately for Mahinda maama, if he had stuck to his two terms he would still be in office today. But, he wanted to have a third term for himself, called for early elections — probably because Sumaney told him to — and lost. In the end, he served the shortest of our two term Presidents, just over nine years.

When Maithri worked with your nephew to try and change the Presidency, Mahinda maama’s minions in Parliament tried their best to stop them, sleeping overnight on the Parliament floor and bringing hundreds of amendments to try and delay the debate, so the new laws wouldn’t be passed.

If it is of any consolation to you, JR, those who wanted your Executive Presidency completely abolished didn’t get what they wanted. However, the President’s wings have been clipped to some extent and if Parliament gets out of hand, he can’t dissolve it either. Hopefully, it is a decent balance.

It is ironical that the two people who supported Maithri are Satellite and your nephew. Your nephew wanted the job twice. Satellite thought nothing wrong of the Presidency when she had the job. Maybe Satellite was keeping her promise to abolish the Presidency and was late as usual — by twenty years!

There were others who helped them and you may recall some of them. You might remember Sobhitha hamuduruwo from your time at the top job. He opposed the Presidency then and he opposes it now. He is the one who started this whole movement against it and deserves a medal for his efforts.

JR, they now want to change your other invention — the ‘manaapa’ (or preferential vote) system. Because of it, if you want to enter Parliament you need a lot of money to spend on your campaign, so very few decent people go there. We hope Maithri can make those changes as well — though your nephew wants early elections!

What all this tells us, JR, is that no matter how you frame the laws, it is the people who use them who ultimately matter. As Maithri has proved, absolute power doesn’t always corrupt absolutely. He is now being hailed as a modern day Sirisangabo, who has taken over after the self-styled Dutugemunu!

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS: It has always struck me as odd, JR, that there are no statues of you in our country (though there is one in Japan), when three ministers in your Cabinet have their statues in Colombo. I used to think that your monument was the Presidency. Now that has gone as well, and only the open economy is left!