5th Column

My dear Maithri,
I thought I must write to you because you are almost completing a year in office and I thought it is my duty to tell you that you are doing a wonderful job, perhaps even beating Mahinda maama at his own game, even though some people are not happy with the way you are doing business.

It is worthwhile remembering that you were elected to create a ‘yahapaalanaya’ government, replacing a government that concentrated power in one individual and his family. You also promised to punish those responsible for the misdeeds of the past and form a government that was ‘clean’.

Some voted for you because they felt that you were sincere in your promises. Others supported you because the Greens asked them to. There were still others who endorsed you because they were tired of Mahinda maama and wanted him out. The rest, as they say, is history and you are now the boss.

We were all impressed with the way you pledged, soon after taking oaths, that you would not be seeking another term of office. We were also encouraged by your efforts to abolish the executive presidency, even if that didn’t work out perfectly in the end and some executive powers were retained.

Then came the general election. That was when most people began to get confused with what you were doing. You were appearing on national television and telling us that you didn’t want to give nominations to Mahinda maama and that you didn’t want him to win — yet he was given nominations!

Looking back though, it seems like a masterstroke. Now, instead of touring the country and speaking at meetings where the rallying call was to ‘wake up with Mahinda’, Mahinda maama is now merely a backbench MP who cannot defy the party’s orders. So, I must admit that was a clever move, Maithri.

Since then, you seem to have copied quite a few of Mahinda maama’s tricks and got away with it. Why, when you appointed your malli to a top job at a top institution, you pointed out that it was the right thing to do because he was qualified for the post — just like Mahinda maama appointing Gota!

Now, everybody is copying that and Captain Cool has appointed his aiya to a top job at a top institution under his purview. When asked about that, he says it is because his brother can be trusted, so trust seems to be the new criteria under which appointments are made under ‘yahapaalanaya’!

Be that as it may, Maithri, you even succeeded taking your little fellow to the UN. Yes, there was a hue and cry about it, but you got away with it saying that you didn’t take a planeload of cronies with you like Mahinda maama did. Now, I don’t think even Namal got to see the UN, so that was clever!

Come the general elections, you played your cards right. After the Greens won the contest, instead of allowing the Blues to sulk in the opposition for the next five years, you convinced the Green Man to give them dozens of Cabinet ministries under the guise of forming a ‘national’ government.

Both you and the Greens promised before the election that the Cabinet would be limited to thirty. The people wanted most of the Blues kicked out of their ministerial jobs. Two elections and a lot of shouting later, we are still saddled with a mega Cabinet and most of the same old faces as ministers!

So, Maithri, you seem to have done exactly what Mahinda maama did: ‘buy’ the support of MPs by appointing dozens of them as ministers but the difference is that while Mahinda maama was criticised when he did that, you are praised for ensuring ‘yahapaalanaya’ through a stable government!

You have even done the impossible: you have ensured that candidates who were defeated at the general election returned to Parliament through the National List. That is something even Mahinda maama couldn’t do, so congratulations, Maithri, you are now showing your true potential as a leader.

The beauty of all this is that you can take the credit whenever something good happens, such as the 19th Amendment or the ‘victory’ in Geneva but when things go horribly wrong, such as with the Avant Garde affair or the vehicle permit issue, you can always blame it on bungling Green ministers.

So, although some people are saying that nothing has really changed under ‘yahapaalanaya’ I admire you, Maithri. Those who wanted a free and just country run by virtuous politicians are disappointed but as long as you can fool some of the people all the time, that doesn’t really matter, does, it?

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS: In recent weeks, Maithri, you have told us again that you will change the Constitution and abolish presidential powers and we have no reason to doubt you. Now, if you end up as the next Prime Minister with more powers than an Executive President, that wouldn’t surprise me at all and what’s more, you would have kept your two promises to the nation — that of abolishing the Presidency and of not running for President again!