5th Column

My dear Green Man,
I thought I will write to you because I am sure you will find time to read this, despite being a very busy man these days after your victory because, after all, your swearing in took only fifteen minutes! Please accept my hearty congratulations — and I sincerely hope you will be fourth time lucky!

I say so because although you have been PM three times before, your periods in office have always been rather short and you haven’t been able to hold on to your job for more than a couple of years at a time. This time, I hope it is different and that you will be able to do some work we can remember you by.

Green Man, there is possibly no other politician in this country who has been laughed at and mocked more than you. There have been times when some of these barbs have come from your own party. You deserve a medal for being able to shrug these off with a smile — and now you have the last laugh.

Whatever way it is looked at, the Greens’ victory is remarkable. To record its lowest ever percentage of less than 30 percent five years ago and then increase it to 46 per cent while Mahinda maama ruled with an iron fist, is no mean achievement indeed and you deserve the credit for that.

There are a few other people you need to thank too. I believe it was Sobhitha Hamuduruwo who first awakened the nation’s conscience to the fact that trying to stay in power indefinitely by selling the war victory was wrong, at a time when most of the country was blinded by that new found patriotism.

You must thank the ‘other’ Mahinda, our ‘Maco’ as well. He applied the law to the letter and we had what was our most peaceful election in decades. Instead of moving constitutional amendments to allow Presidents to run for a third term, we should allow ‘Maco’ to work beyond his retirement age!

Maithri must be thanked just as much as he needs to thank you for allowing him to be the ‘common’ candidate. Then, the two hand grenades he casually tossed, first in an address to the nation and then in a letter, all but ensured that Mahinda maama wouldn’t win. He has quite a style of his own, hasn’t he?

Whatever your past differences with her, you must thank Satellite as well. Without her support, Maithri wouldn’t have stepped out of Mahinda maama’s shadow and it could have been a different story altogether. And what’s more, she ensured that the Blues stayed divided until the very end!

Don’t forget to thank Wimal, Vasu, Dinesh and Udaya. Because of them, the Blues chanted the same slogan — ‘bring back Mahinda’ — even after he was rejected by the people. That made your task easy because they contested with the same thugs, thieves and people who thought they were above the law.

Last but not the least, you must thank Mahinda maama too. After 45 years in politics, he should have had the common sense to retire and ensure his place in history as the man who saved the country from terrorism, instead of being remembered as a mere MP for the Kurunegala district!

Anyway Green Man, now you have a job to do: To rebuild a country that is free, fair and peaceful and I am a bit worried because, soon after you took oaths, we saw the Greens and the Blues signing an agreement for a national government. Whatever that is, I hope it wouldn’t be like the last six months.

I hope that you would now do justice to all the crooks who swindled our nation, instead of merely parading them before television cameras as they enter and leave Police headquarters. And I also hope that would apply to the high and mighty including Central Bank Governors, both past and present!

Because you have a ‘national’ government, your Cabinet will be large. You will have old faces, both Blue and Green, who don’t deserve to be there. I hope you will be able to choose the best person for the job in allocating ministries because that will decide how our country is run in the next five years.

It was reassuring to see Mahinda maama at your swearing in. He showed humility to be there. That is how it should be. But, he has 95 seats of his own. Given a chance, he will rope in two dozen Greens and get your job. Remember what they say about kittens on the other side of Bentara Ganga!

You toiled long and hard. You have borne more insults than anyone else we can think of without ill will towards those hurling them at you. Now, your time has come. You can silence your critics once and for and all. Green Man, we wish you well if only because we want the best for our country.

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS: Only Dudley before you has been PM four times over. Like you, he was first appointed after the sudden death of his party leader. Like you, his first three terms were short and didn’t have happy endings. However, he lasted the full distance of five years in his fourth term. Green Man, It looks like history is also on your side this time around!