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You can’t hold back the dawn
View(s):The nation awakes this Sunday morning to a new splendorous dawn of hope and promise having discharged its duty faithfully and acquitted itself with honour at the this week’s general elections. Taking his oaths on Friday for a record fourth time as Prime Minister of the sixth government born under the proportional representation system, Ranil Wickremesinghe’s call for a broad national policy that addresses the main issues the country faced worked out with the consensus of all parties was welcome news to a nation that had been brought to a standstill by crass divisional politics these last eight months.
FOURTH TIME PM: Ranil with his wife Maithree wave before stepping out of their home to attend the swearing in ceremony
For Wickremesinghe, his patience had paid off and the dawn that broke upon the land in January which had seemed but false now appeared more securely set. His party’s stunning victory to emerge as the party with the largest number of seats in parliament had put paid to the grandiose claims of the Rajapaksa dominated UPFA of achieving a clear majority to form a UPFA government.
The anticipated tussle that would then have ensued for Mahinda Rajapaksa to become Prime Minister against the expressed wishes of President Sirisena would have further embroiled this nation in a vitriolic battle which it could ill afford to entertain. Thankfully the result: 106 seats to the UNP, 95 to the UPFA settled the issue and condemned it to history’s dustbin.
For Wickremesinghe, once labelled even by his own party men as a dismal party leader for his abject inability to oust Rajapaksa from his presidential pedestal, the clear victory over his arch rival has proved he is by no means the write off he was painted to be by his detractors but a worthy figure held in the highest national esteem. His record of being thrice prime minister of Lanka is proof. If failure had dogged him, it is only because the office of prime minister has been but a slippery eel in his hands. Today, as he rubs his palms with success, he should make certain he does not let slip the title once again from his somewhat sloppy grasp.
As for his leadership qualities his sterling reputation for being ‘Mr. Clean’, held beyond doubt by the entire nation as a result of the impeccable manner in which he has conducted himself should serve as a role model for the present member-elects of Parliament and the emerging generation of politicians to emulate.
If not for his practice of gentlemanly politics, if not for his disinclination to stoop below his dignity to acquire power at all costs he may have been president of this country twenty years ago as evidenced by the selfless role he played when President Premadasa was assassinated and D. B. Wijetunga was the figure head prime minister in the UNP government in 1993. With Gamini Dissanayake out of the UNP at that time and leading the breakaway DUNF party, Ranil could have influenced the UNP membership to elect him as President to serve the rest of the Premadasa term. But he didn’t; and, instead of embroiling the party in an internecine war that would centre on him and the late Gamini Dissanayake, allowed protocol to operate and elect Mr. Wijetunga as President.
If such men of such calibre were not amongst those present today to take the lead and steer this nation safe to the promised land of decency, honesty and justice, the politics of this nation would have been fought not on the stages of democracy but in the cesspools of blood today. The peaceful elections that we experienced last week may not have taken place, possibly because democracy itself may have been slaughtered and elections would have been rendered redundant.
As for his opponent Mahinda Rajapaksa, as for the former twice elected president who came a cropper trying to go for a third, the self-acclaimed hero who won the war single handed and flaunted the glory and made it a personal family heirloom, the self crowned King of Lanka who holds himself out as ‘Palamuwani Rajapaksa Rajuni’ or ‘King Rajapaksa the First, as the giant billboard with his photograph at his Carlton home in Tangalle proclaims without a blush — well, all that can be said is that ‘he asked for it’ or as they say in the vernacular “illang kaywa”.
RANIL AND MAHINDA: The winner and the loser walk together to attend the swearing in ceremony conducted by President Sirisena
His overpowering lust for power and his unbridled ambition breached the dam of reality’s tolerance and spurred him to return to the common fray to seek the voters’ mandate for another term of Rajapaksa de facto rule as prime minister, even though his presidency itself had been rejected decisively at the last election by the Lankan electorate not even eight months ago. But goaded by the UPFA hangers-on who hanged on to him solely to secure their own seats and ended up hanging him on the murunga branch of praise, he opted to dream the impossible dream and, making dreams his master, waged the last ounce of his goodwill on a single turn of pitch-and-toss and lost.
The only saving grace was that he, to his credit, topped the UPFA voters list in the Kurunegala district as did his son top the UPFA list in Hambantota as did his ardent supporter Prasanna Ranatunga top the UPFA list in Gampaha. So did a former Rajapaksa deputy minister, Premalal Jayasekara — presently in remand as a murder suspect in the case where a UNP supporter was shot dead while erecting a Maithripala stage in Kahawatte on January 5th this year – succeeded, to his credit, to top the UPFA list in the Ratnapura District with 154,000 UPFA supporters voting for him out of the 323,000 total votes cast for the UPFA while former minister John Seneviratne only managed to bag second place with 90,000 votes with loud mouth Pavithra trailing behind.
And today what further glorious spell beckons Rajapaksa as he approaches his seventieth birthday this November? For him taking his seat in Parliament on September 1st as a mere member from the Kurunegala district sans his war halo will almost be like going to school again with his satchel bag probably stuffed with old files of his former ministers; and facing the dim prospect of finding, in the autumn of his political career, the dubious life time achievement award of being seated on the same bench as his son and being subjected to listen to the dicta of the Head Prefect in the House, Ranil, with Principal Sirisena ensconced in the presidential secretariat nor far away.
In his tortuous mind, he may well wonder whether when Maithripala Sirisena finally endorsed his nomination under the UPFA banner with apparent displeasure, the shrewd President was chuckling within with delight, knowing well he was leading him up the Medamulana Garden path to doom.
As for the JVP, its appeal to the public to vote in more members to place them in a credible position to make a bid to form a government at the next general elections has not materialised. It remains the dream it has always been. All that the voters have done is to have left the cage door ajar for a moment and let slip a half a dozen watchdogs to guard the nation’s democratic frontiers. Funny isn’t it how the native popes of communism have become the guardian angels of Lanka’s democracy?
As for Sarath Fonseka’s Democratic Party, the less said the better. The last post has sounded and the flag lies gently on the fallen. Field Marshall Fonseka’s rash act to rush first with the nomination papers to the Elections Commissioner’s office and contest alone without first doing a reconnaissance on the political field must rank as the political equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade. The result: All perished in the valiant attempt.
For this thrice blessed nation, Monday’s verdict offers hope that the nightmare is finally over — that the worst is past. For eight months the nation has tottered on the brink of the abyss; its work at a standstill; its future in peril. It has been obsessed with one man’s gluttony for power and with the antics of an unscrupulous gang who fed it, motivated by naught but by an overpowering urge to escape the visitation of Nemesis. If there was any doubt that the people wanted a return of the old Rajapaksa regime, it has now been settled. It is now up to those whose bizarre efforts to distort the January 8th mandate ended in ignominious defeat, to respect the nation’s final judgement and return to the decrepit woodwork from whence they crawled.
| JVP is first past the post to break election pledge One bark more in the House through National List but carries less bite If there is one pompous political party that has an uncanny way of being able to break its election pledges with impunity even without winning an election and get away with it, the dishonour belongs to the Janatha Vimukthi Permuna. In the run up to the election they presented their nomination list and, giving themselves a hearty pat on their back, proudly declared, “Look, no single candidate who is tainted with corruption is on our list.”Hardly surprising, isn’t it, that the JVP can lay claim to its pristine status for unlike the other two major parties the UNP and UPFA, the JVP members have hardly held political office, hardly tasted intoxicating political power, hardly had influence over swaying tender boards and thus, hardly having faced the wiles of temptation, hardly risked the prospect of having to succumb to it. Their proud boast is no different to one in a nunnery boasting virginal virtues. As it is said the strongest steel is the one that has withstood the hottest fire. The position of the JVP members is the same as that of Tartarus, the mythological Greek figure condemned to stand in a pool of water beneath a tree with its low branches laden with hanging fruit. The fruit ever eludes his grasp whenever he reaches to pluck, and the water always recedes whenever he stoops to sip. Given half a chance of savouring real power, would the JVP have eaten of the fruit and sipped the water? Being in such a predicament as Tartarus all life long, can the JVP take justifiable pride in boasting a virtue never put to the acid test to determine its true value? Then there is the much acclaimed JVP national list which the party placed before the public for certain applause. “Look,” they roared hardly able to contain their glee in displaying their crowning glory, drawing the nation’s attention to the litany of academics, intellectuals, professionals, senior public officials — men above board, men of moral rectitude that embellished the list, their names scattered on paper like perfect 100 carat polished diamonds. “Look, have you seen anything like our national list anywhere else,” they exclaimed, “look at our list and see that we have only chosen the cream of the academia, the best of the intellectuals, the cleverest of the professionals and the pride of the civil service.” They were right. And they truly deserved every peal of praise that liberally fell from the right thinking members of the public. Compared to this most impressive national list, the lists of other parties looked like horse racing chits issued by bookies. A good example of this is UPFA’s Dilan Perera who lost for the UPFA his own home electorate of Hali-ela twice: once at the Uva Provincial Council elections last year and then at the presidential election this year and again now, for the third time at Monday’s general elections. Wisely he did not contest. Instead of wooing the Hali-ela voters, he courted the Rajapaksa UPFA seniors and succeeded in being named on the UPFA national list. At least the UPFA was honest in that regard. He was named before the election. Not after. They did not wait for him to contest and lose again and then smuggle him through the national list by callously deleting the name of one already listed. But not so with the JVP. Their disastrous performance at last Monday’s elections has forced them to reveal their true colours. Or rather the lack of it. Instead of taking the acclaimed bow and applause under the national spotlight dressed in the double breasted bespoke Saville Row suit of impeccable principles, they stand today naked in their loin cloths with the mud of their double standards dripping down their fig leaf of shame for all to gape. What caused the JVP steel to be tested with the hottest fire and to be found wanting is that the election debacle they encountered resulted in only four of its members being elected to parliament. Worse, a senior JVP heavyweight, Sunil Handunnetti, lost his seat in Matara, the capital of the southern JVP stronghold where lay embedded the roots of the party’s founding fathers. Handunnetti, having been given the thumbs down by the voters, thus faced the Siberia of parliamentary exile. The only way he could be brought back from the cold was to sneak him through the national list, thus turning the national list on its head by making it the convenient vehicle to transport one who had lost the voters confidence — the very same principle the JVP had been so vehemently against not even two weeks ago. In fact before the polls, party leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake had also announced that the JVP would not appoint defeated candidates to Parliament through the National List. But JVP before an election and JVP after an election are two different kettles of fish. The pre-poll JVP is one of the highest ideals. The post-poll JVP shows itself to be made of a baser coin and confirms its devout belief in Lenin’s tenet ‘the end justifies the means’. They did not take too long to make up their minds. Even before the purple paint daubed on voters’ little fingers could fade away, the JVP had decided as to who should fill the only two national list slots it had become entitled to name. Handunnetti was named pronto and the national list was submitted to the Elections Commissioner in a flash on Thursday before public criticism could flay the move. The party famous for saying it will never compromise, compromised. It sacrificed the national list principle and forced an already named professional or academic on the list to take a ‘dive’ and in its place brought Handunnetti to the ring? This should be a timely warning for all those independent men of high calibre who consented to be named on the JVP national list. It provides a convincing demonstration of the schizophrenic behaviour of the JVP when it is in cloud nine of theory and when down in the dust of reality. Those who consent in the future to lend their worthy names to adorn the JVP national list should realise they will merely be the window dressing. The soiled rejects to be passed onto the unsuspecting voter under the genuine JVP brand name lie concealed in the basement until the time is ripe. True enough, the JVP did a great job these last few years in being the nation’s watchdogs. They were admired for their forthrightness and their dedication to expose the previous Rajapaksa regimes corruption. Their arguments were well articulated and, unlike the ramblings of JVP leaders of the past, were not voiced in cacophonic outbursts but with calm coherence. | |
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