5th Column

I thought I must write to you to find out how you are faring as you go about the business of campaigning for next month’s elections. I am sure you must be an anxious man, now that Mahinda maama is also contesting and threatening to upset your grand plans for a great Green victory.

We saw you on Thursday unveiling what you called your ‘60-month programme’. I can’t see why you have to put a time period on all your promises. The last time you did that with the ‘dina seeye wedasatahana’ or ‘one hundred day programme’ it didn’t quite work out that way, did it?

Correct me if I am wrong, Green Man, but when your ‘60-month plan’ was launched, everyone, including those from the other parties who have joined you and even Sobhitha haamuduruwo were there but we didn’t see Sajith. Surely, there must be a limit to how busy one can be at Hambantota!

I know you don’t like making promises you can’t keep, Green Man, but there wasn’t anything really exciting in your ‘60-month programme’. When JR won in 1977, he promised ‘eta ata’ for everyone and Preme bettered that in 1989, offering two thousand and five hundred rupees for the less fortunate.
I know it may be silly, but you must know by now that Sri Lankans will vote for anyone making a promise regardless of whether they are green, blue or red. So, you could have offered them something too, such as ten Treasury Bonds for each family. I am sure Arjuna M. could have organised that for you!

Green Man, I am no economic expert and I don’t want to get an argument about whether there was a fraud at the Big Bank or not because I can’t tell the difference between a Treasury Bond and James Bond, but I can tell you this: if the Greens lose on the 17th, there’s the reason in just two words.

I know you resorted to the old trick: Appoint a committee and hope that everyone will forget about it. Unfortunately Parliament appointed another committee, that chap Dew leaked its report, you went to court to prevent that and now, regardless of what really went on, it doesn’t look good for the Greens.

But if one Arjuna was bad news, another Arjuna brought good news. Captain Cool and some blue boys, including the garrulous dentist, joined you for this election too. So did Champika and Rauff. So, it is the same ‘yahapaalanaya’ team that did battle in January minus only the big man, Maithri!

Even though Maithri has not officially joined you, he has played a captain’s innings for you with his famous speech where he said that Mahinda maama would not be appointed Prime Minister. He could have done better by dissolving Parliament earlier, of course, but he has to look after the blue boys too.

Now that the campaign is in full swing, you must be sharpening your public relations skills, Green Man. People say you are awkward at times and you don’t pick up babies and kiss them but at least you don’t lunge at supporters with a raised fist and then say you were trying to save your finger!

Now, if you want to demonstrate your public relations skills, Green Man, I think you should take the television camera crews with you, visit the maalu market one of these days and demonstrate that you can indeed identify ‘Paraw’ fish because Mahinda maama thinks that is a requirement for being PM.

I am sure Mahinda maama, being the good Southerner that he is, can readily identify ‘Paraw’ fish but the mistake he made was that in the ten years he was in charge, those who were with him who began like sprats ended up as sharks and he didn’t bother to ask how — or if he knew, he looked the other way.

I heard Satellite is returning to Paradise and is planning to mark her entry with a few choice words. Whatever you do, don’t invite her on to your campaign platforms — unless, of course, you want to lose a few hundred thousand votes whenever she launches into one of her ‘ege vairaya’ speeches.

If it is of any consolation to you, the former Big Wig in Hulftsdorp, Sarath, who begged forgiveness for exonerating Mahinda maama in the ‘Helping Hambantota’ case is now on his side, so Mahinda maama must be losing votes too. So, even if Satellite does make a noise, the scores might be even!

Anyway, Green Man, though the elections are only two dozen days away, I am sure there will be many scandals, white vans and all. Whoever wins, let us hope that they will able to set up a stable government to run the country for the next five years — and not like it was run in the last six months!

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS: Poor Angelo and his team are going through a lean patch these days, losing game after game, be it in Test matches or one day internationals. As someone who is an expert on how to stay on top despite losing continuously, could you do all of us a favour and give Angelo some advice, Green Man?