Columns

The see-sawing of political fortunes in the country, week after week, is enough to keep both politicians and the public preoccupied, and also deflect attention away from more important issues at hand.

The Parliamentary week began on Tuesday amidst an unfolding scandal involving former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his election campaign of 2015, with a report that appeared in the New York Times (NYT) gathering momentum locally. Allegations made in the NYT expose that he received millions of rupees from a Chinese company to fund his election campaign, was just what the Government needed to push back the rising clout of the former President and his brothers, who are moving ahead full steam in their quest to seize power at the 2020 elections.

But, given how quickly political ups and downs gather momentum in this country, the Government had little time to take full advantage of the expose against Rajapaksa because, soon, UNP Jaffna District MP- State Minister of Child Affairs, Vijayakala Maheshwaran was embroiled in a bigger controversy, by wishing for a return of the LTTE, so that heinous crimes such as the recent rape and murder of a 6-year-old girl in the Peninsula, would not take place. She was speaking in Jaffna where the recent spate of serious crimes has left people unnerved, and would have been looking to appease her electorate but, given the touchy nature of the subject, there was an uproar as expected and this was evident in Parliament, more than elsewhere. Those who were up in arms and willing to literally bring the House down were those of the Joint Opposition (JO) group, who called for her removal from Parliament, alleging she had violated the Constitution by calling for a return of a group that had espoused separatism. Attempts by Speaker Karu Jayasuirya to bring the House to order failed, and things came to a head when the group of boisterous MPs attempted to remove the Mace, forcing the Speaker to abruptly adjourn sittings.

On Wednesday, when the House met, the Speaker reprimanded the errant MPs and said some of them had behaved in a reprehensible manner and brought the entire Parliament into disrepute. “The moment I heard of MP Maheswaran’s statement, I inquired into it. I got a transcript of her speech and asked the Attorney General to rule whether she had violated the Constitution in the course of her speech,” he said.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the LTTE is a proscribed organisation and no room will be left for it to revive itself. “Both, the Government and the UNP, will always safeguard the territorial integrity of the country,” adding an inquiry will be held by the UNP into Mrs.Maheshwaran’s conduct. “The armed forces have made many sacrifices for this country. UNP leaders have been killed, so have many others from all other political parties. The aim of the LTTE was to disrupt Parliament and democracy, and we saw that some of those here too tried to do that yesterday, by disrupting sittings,” he said.

The Prime Minister also said it is ironic that members of the political party that appointed Karuna, who killed 600 policemen, the SLFP Deputy Leader, gave money to Prabhakaran to stop people from voting, and imprisoned Sarath Fonseka who stopped the war, are shouting now. “It is an obvious attempt to sweep the NYT article under the carpet,” he alleged.

By Thursday Ms Vijaykala Maheshwaran resigned from her post of State Minister. Whether she violated the Constitution by calling for a return of the LTTE will depend how the AG interprets her comments, while this week it gave enough ammunition to the JO group to hit back at the Government.

Much of the attention by the NYT article on the former president was deflected by the controversial comments made by Ms Maheswaran. The “Hitler” comments of the previous week seem to be almost forgotten by now. In a country where memories are short, when it comes to politics, such distractions are like to take up much of the time of the Government as well as the Opposition, as the ‘Yahapalanaya’ rule inches its way towards its next electoral face off with the Rajapaksa camp.