Sunday Times 2
Snubbing the people
View(s):Being now a senior citizen in my seventies, I am old enough to remember the 1967 Pelmadulla bye-election.
Mrs Sita Molamure Seneviratne (daughter of the famous Sir Francis Molamure and wife of the much respected civil servant L.J.de S. Seneviratne) contested the Pelmadulla seat on behalf of the UNP. She lost the election to Mr. Dharmadasa Wanniarachchi of the SLFP.
Even before Dharmadasa Wanniarach
chi could be sworn in as the new member for Pelmadulla in the then House of Representatives, however, the UNP Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake appointed the defeated candidate to the Senate – and Ms. Seneviratne took her place as a member of the legislature in what was then the Upper House of Parliament. Dudley Senanayake obviously felt that he needed the support of his candidate in the legislature – despite her being emphatically rejected (for the second time) by the voters of Pelmadulla!
I was reminded of this incident when I read last week that President Maithripala Sirisena had decided to appoint to parliament on the National List so many candidates who were rejected by the people at the August 17th election. These were candidates who were decisively spurned by the voters — but Maithripala Sirisena (like Dudley Senanayake fifty years ago) obviously feels that he is wiser than us voters — and can over-rule us without question.
Only a month ago our President was exhorting us voters to send to parliament people of worth – and to reject those who were unfit to serve. Now, by appointing these losers to parliament against OUR better judgement, he has put a slap — a “thundering slap” in our Sri Lankan way of speaking – in the face of us voters who rejected those whom we felt were unfit to represent us.
Admittedly a man like Thilanga Sumapthipala – successful businessman, great supporter of our national cricket team, upstanding member of the Freemasons Lodge — has a lot of qualities that would make him a good parliamentarian. Admittedly S.B.Dissanayake (former general secretary of the SLFP, former National Organiser of the UNP and a man who can hold his own in any cabinet meeting and even stand up to bossy and powerful people like Chandrika Kumaratunga) would be a man to be reckoned with in any legislature.
But the fact remains that honourable men like Thilanga and SB were REJECTED BY THE VOTERS.
For the President to ignore the verdict of the people and appoint these people to parliament can only be interpreted by us the voters as an insult to our judgement and intelligence — and that the President does not care even two thuttuwas for our opinion.
People like Thilanga and SB may provide Maithripala Sirisena with the support he needs – whether intellectual, financial or moral – but what he has done is intellectually insulting and politically immoral.
To give the new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe his due, he has stuck to the UNP’s original National List (if we choose to ignore the exception of Puttalam District’s Mohammed Navavi of Rishad Bathiudeen’s ACMC) and has even rejected the appeals of Colombo 7 and Facebook posters to bring the capable Rosy Senanayake back into parliament.
By all means, appoint defeated candidates like her as High Commissioner to London — and even appoint your brothers and brothers-in-law as Chairpersons of bodies like Sri Lanka Telecom or Sri Lankan Airlines if you must.
But please, Mr President, do not disrespect and insult us voters by blatantly refusing to accept the verdict we delivered at the recent polls.