5th Column

My dear Maithri,
I thought I must write to you because you seem to be a bit upset these days, judging from your public remarks, lashing out at people who have been critical of you. We know you are doing a difficult job, balancing loyalties between the Blues and the Greens, but then, that is what you asked for, isn’t it?

We heard that you were in South Korea recently, talking to the big boss there. I am sure you two would have discussed the problems you have and you must have felt that his problems with North Korea’s nuclear ambitions pale into insignificance, compared to the ambitions of some people here!

We also heard you lash out at people who you called ‘political infants’. You said they would have to cry when they got themselves covered in smut which can’t be cleaned up even with seven laundries. You didn’t say who they were but I do think you were referring to young Sujeewa, weren’t you?

I only ask because young Sujeewa had said that he was ‘sad’ about you. His argument was that while you had appointed a commission to probe the sale of Central Bank bonds, there were no commissions, for example, to inquire into the MIG deals and many other ‘deals’ entered into by your predecessor.

We know that young Sujeewa is upset because he was found to have had several hundred telephone conversations with the ‘Bond Man’. He says that those conversations were to gather material for a book he wrote on the subject but many of those conversations were after the book was published!
There is no excuse for that and we have to thank you for appointing a commission without which none of this would have come to light – and Ravi would still be living in an apartment where someone was paying his rent for him and he would still be signing our currency notes. You put a stop to that.

Nevertheless, I think that young Sujeewa is asking a valid question: where are all the investigations into the alleged misdeeds of the people you ousted from power saying that they were corrupt to the core? Is sending Mahinda maama’s secretary to jail for distributing ‘sil redi’ the best you can do?
The 6.2 million people who voted for you did so because they believed that you would show what clean government was like. They didn’t vote for you to retain half the rogues in the previous Blue Cabinet. Some of them even lost at the last election, only to be included in the National List by you!

Then, Maithri, there is this other little issue about elections for local council and provincial councils. Mahinda maama, whatever his other sins, cannot be accused of postponing elections. In fact, he had an election campaign going on almost all the time. With you though, we are yet to see an election.

That Faiszer chap has become a master at making promises about elections and then explaining why those promises cannot be kept. Now, it seems the Greens, the Reds, Mahinda maama’s ‘pohottuwa’ boys and even good old Maco wants an election. The only exception seems to be your blue eyed boys.

Is that because they are worried that they will finish a distant third behind the Greens and Mahinda maama’s ‘pohottuwa’ boys? You may say that is not so, but the reality is that many people have lost the trust they placed in you nearly two years ago – and only you can win back that trust, Maithri.

One reason why they have lost that trust is because you seem to breaking your main election promise – that you will be a one term President. You too seem to be bitten by the bug of presidential power – just as Satellite and Mahinda maama before you. They too promised to abolish the Presidency, but didn’t.

The other reason is that after being elected through votes that came mostly from the Green party, you are now trying to lead the Blue party which rejected you even during the last general election when you were the king. As a result, neither the Blues nor the Greens now like you that much!

I am now wondering whether you have annoyed Satellite too, Maithri. Only the other day she was telling us that this country needs rulers with backbones to take on its current challenges and do what needs to be done. I wonder whether she was trying to tell us something in her own inimitable way!

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS: Amidst all this, Maithri, you need to be wary about Gota too. We heard rumours that you prevented his arrest. All we know is that there are full page newspaper advertisements which say ‘our Gota, together for all’. Old soldiers never die, but this one doesn’t even fade away, does he?