5th Column

My dear Green Man

I thought I must write to you at a time when everyone in Paradise is waiting with bated breath for your decision about who will run for the Greens in the next big race. We all know you would like to be the candidate, but so does young Sajith — and that is where the problem lies for the Greens.

Green Man, please don’t get me wrong. We do appreciate what you have done for the Greens in the forty-two years that you have been in the house by the Diyawanna Oya and in the twenty-five years when you led them. Still, it was also under your watch that they lost the most number of elections.

One of your smartest moves was to stand by the senior Preme when he was impeached by Lalith and Gamini. That saved Preme’s job and saved the Greens as a party. So, it must be quite ironical for you that it is the son of the person whose job you saved, who is now challenging you for your job!

Another smart move that we remember was to leave Temple Trees when the Greens lost the general election when Dearly Beloved was in charge after Preme’s assassination. Gamini wanted to cobble together a government but you rightly walked out of Temple Trees. That was the right thing to do.

Since then, you must admit that you have made some mistakes. You trusted Satellite too much when she was the boss and said that she wouldn’t dissolve the Parliament in which you had a majority. You also allowed the Greens go in to decline by not running the big race on the last two occasions.

Your biggest mistake however was unleashing Aiyo Sirisena on all of us. To be fair, at that time most people thought it was a good idea because Mahinda maama and his cronies were acting as if Paradise was their little fiefdom. Still, Aiyo Sirisena can’t be blamed for everything that went wrong.

You came to power with a mandate to wipe out corruption. Yet, there was corruption on a mega scale in the bond scam at the big bank. The man in charge there was a person you had chosen. Then, when it was revealed that Bond Ravi also had his fingers in the pie, you didn’t have the guts to sack him.

You must also admit that the last four years weren’t the most efficient years of government. That is partly Aiyo Sirisena’s fault because he keeps throwing a spanner in the works like he did in October last year. However, the Greens haven’t delivered on most of their promises and voters are not happy.

If the Greens are to recover and return to power, they need a new image. Voters need to feel that a few ladies and gentlemen sitting in offices in Colombo don’t take decisions on their behalf. There also needs to be a new face at the top to convince voters that the Greens have changed.

Green Man, you cannot say that you haven’t had your chances. You have been PM in Paradise five times — more than any other person. You have run the big race twice and lost, though you were very unlucky the first time around because Prabha called for an election boycott in the North and East.

You have now reached the biblical life span of three score years and ten. Most of it has been spent in the hurly burly of politics. You must know by now that it is good to go when people ask you why you are leaving, instead of waiting until they ask you why you aren’t leaving. That time to leave has come.

Some in the Green camp want you stay on. That is not because they love you more but because they fear for their own futures if Sajith takes the top job. You and I both know who they are. I hope you will have the wisdom to see through their tactics and make the right decision for the sake of the party.

Having you run the big race when Sajith is available is like sending Thirimanne to bat and getting Sanga to carry the drinks. It is still not too late to make a graceful exit. If you do so, believe me, people will be grateful to you for making the correct decision on behalf of the Greens.

If you leave now, history will still be kind you. You will be remembered as someone who kept the Grand Old Party together in difficult times, when most of their leaders were being murdered. They will also remember you as a decent man who tried his best to do his job, but wasn’t able to.

Green Man, you have been a proud Royalist all your life. In fact, people accuse you of surrounding yourself with too many Royalists. For once, can you follow Royal’s motto, ‘Disce Aut Discede’ or ‘Learn or Depart’, instead of following the Thomian motto, Esto Perpetua or ‘Be Thou Forever’?

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS- The story goes that when some ministers wanted your political guru and uncle, JR, to run the big race for a third time, it was that gracious lady, Elena who firmly put a stop to those plans. Thirty years later, we feel that it is about time for another gracious lady, Maithree, to have a word in your ear!