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Last Sunday was a special day in Sri Lanka’s political history. It was the day that President Sirisena eventually got back on his feet instead of standing on his head — metaphorically speaking naturally.

At the tail-end of October he had resorted to skullduggery to undermine his own government. Last Sunday, he reversed his decision after playing around with it for two months or so.

It is not that he got quickly tired of his childish revolving-door politics. One of the other arms of the state structure — the judiciary — told President Sirisena and his so-called legal experts not to play games with the constitution. The seven-judge Supreme Court bench taught Sirisena and his cohorts some lessons in interpreting the constitution. Chief Justice Nalin Perera and his brother judges told the Attorney General not to play Lazarus and revive laws that were dead and buried.

Some days earlier the third arm of the State — the parliament — had already taught the executive that it could not interfere in the workings of the legislature and tell the Speaker what to do and how to conduct the affairs of parliament.

Four years ago, President Sirisena appointed UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as his prime minister. Then on October 26, he furtively sacked the same prime minister telling the Sri Lankan people and a surprised world that he could not work with Wickremesinghe and so he got rid of him.

Then last Sunday, Sirisena, yielding to what he called his strong commitment to democratic principles that he had cultivated like his rice crops, swore-in Wickremesinghe as his prime minister having thrown him out to the wolves just three weeks earlier.

Immediately after admitting Wickremesinghe once more into the fold as it were, he berated the new prime minister (well not exactly new) and UNP supporters he had invited to a meeting room in the secretariat accusing them of multiple sins.

It seemed that all the perfumes of Arabia could not cleanse Wickremesinghe and his “clique”, as the president preferred to call them.

It was indeed a rare if not a unique occasion in the annals of our post-independence history. I cannot, for the love of me, recall a similar happening anywhere in the modern world and would like to know from President Sirisena’s advisers (hopefully not the same chaps who provided legal and constitutional expertise a while earlier) of a parallel.

In the days that followed hordes of people — well not as many as the followers of Genghis Khan — had flocked to Polonnaruwa. This might be apocryphal, of course, but the stories that reached our neck of the woods by multiple sources of communication said the number of visitors/tourists to Polonnaruwa had increased considerably since last week.

The cause for this sudden influx is apparently because they wanted to see the president who gave up his privileges, his luxurious residence and the constant foreign visits accompanied at times with his brood, to keep to pledges he made after sacking his prime minister.

What pledges, asked some. Others were too stunned to ask any questions. That is understandable. Here where the Mother of Parliaments has sat for centuries, where the monarchy continues albeit in less ostentatious ways, where dozens of security do not accompany the motorcades that transport our King of kings, our people wanted to pay homage to the leader who voluntarily sacrificed all to fulfil a promise.

In this country of Brexiteers and others of a thousand opinions, the British Prime Minister is fighting her own backbenchers to keep her leadership and stoutly resist being ejected from her prime ministerial post by stealthy coups in the dead of night, so to say.

All is done in broad daylight in the parliament of the people and by vote and in orderly fashion without copies of the Hansard and the Holy Book being hurled at the Speaker and solutions of chilli powder mixed with water being thrown at whoever is within range.

Here and there an MP might inflate his expenses or not record his all-expenses paid foreign travel — to Sri Lanka for instance. But then MPs here do not demand £5,000 to jump from one side of the aisle to the other, like the chaps at home who want a princely sum to engage in a long jump — as mentioned by our forthright president.

Is it scant wonder then there is heavy traffic to Polonnaruwa. Even foreign tourists visiting the ancient capital Polonnaruwa want to have a peep at this extraordinary leader who threw all his precious privileges to the closest garbage bin (which hopefully would be cleared) and returned to his beloved Polonnaruwa,  adding his name to the list of great leaders who ruled from that historic capital.

If the thousands, who flocked to the one time capital of Parakrama Bahu the Great, returned empty-handed as it were, it was because the president had one or two things to do in Colombo before relinquishing his position, or some fervently hoped.

Other stories were spreading thick and fast. It was said that Polonnaruwa could accommodate only one great leader like Parakrama Bahu and not two. So the plaques to be placed in and around Polonnaruwa cannot carry the legend “Sirisena the Great” unless he was ready to say “Sirisena the Greatest”, telling our Bahu where to get off.

Maybe he will agree to “Sirisena the Effervescent” or “Sirisena the Surreptitious” but certainly not an edict that reads “Sira the Proclaimer” seeing what happened to his last proclamation that ended up in the Supreme Court. Perhaps Sirisena of Moragahakande might be more apt now that somebody threw away the original plaque there which carried the name of DS Senanayake and replaced it with Maithripala Sirisena.

All those people would not have been disappointed at missing the man who gave up everything for our Ranil if they had checked with the presidential secretariat. It is true, of course, that at various times Sirisena said various things to disparage Wickremesinghe and his clique, as the President calls them. These different descriptions of his rivals and what he expects to do in the event he sees Wickremesinghe down the corridor or wherever, has become legendary.

Fundamentally the president refused to swear-in Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister — not even if all the 225 members of parliament voted for him as PM.

Then he told the UNP that he will consider any other member of their party for the post but not Wickremesinghe. On another occasion, Sirisena said that if Wickremesinghe was named as prime ministerial candidate he would resign as president. On still another occasion, the president who is an ardent democrat — or so — said he would quit as president and leave his official residence in one hour.

Strangely — or was it – enough, none of these happened. The other day somebody passing by the presidential residence is said to have seen the president in his garden and there were no signs of activity suggestive of a departing occupant.

Some others in Colombo checked their watches and set their alarms to go off one hour later. The alarms went off but alas not Sirisena. There were no signs of his moving to Polonnaruwa or to Maharagama where his son is said to have a spacious house — whether gifted or purchased it is not widely known.

So after a week or so there are no signs that Sirisena is ready to pack his suit case and go to his more permanent home. As somebody said the other day that Sirisena as great thinker and a shrewd politician knows which side his bread is buttered. Surely that should not matter to our incumbent president. He eats both sides just as he is accustomed to eat his words which he has been doing voraciously in recent weeks. Why should a few words matter to a seasoned politician who has been eating sheaves of promises these last few years?

Hardly had Wickremesinghe been reinstalled when the international community (read the ‘West’ and India) which had been strangely silent suddenly burst into song praising Sri Lanka for sorting out its political chaos and welcoming its return to democratic governance.

If the world thinks the troubles are over they cannot be more wrong. Sirisena has not gone to Polonnaruwa because he is going into battle in Colombo. He will engage in guerilla tactics, sniping from wherever he is entrenched and preparing to contest a second term. He will join whoever is ready to engage in the coming political war, even a Weerawansa or a Gammanpilla.

Kumara Welgama, a close confidant of Mahinda Rajapaksa, said the other day that Sirisena should resign having violated the constitution. A valid thought but the man will not move.

Why was Sirisena fighting to attach the subjects Law and Order and the Mass Media to the trophies he has already collected? He is readying for battle and hell with the Geneva Convention and the Sri Lanka constitution.