5th Column

My dear Sajith,

I thought I must write to you when I heard that you had been appointed Leader of the Opposition a few days ago. The Green Man has finally allowed you to take the job that he held almost continuously for 25 years, but he is still hanging in there as the leader of the party, at least for now.

It seems as if you were given this position because the majority of the Greens in Parliament wanted you there. So, the Green Man really had no other alternative. Besides, you will be leading the party to a general elections which will be impossible to win, so you could be blamed again when that happens.

We heard some in the Green camp trying to blame you for Gota maama’s victory. They are mostly those who didn’t want you to be the candidate anyway. However, most people recognise the defeat for what it was- a general dissatisfaction at the way things were done during the ‘yahapaalanaya’ era.

Being part and parcel of that ‘yahapaalanaya’ regime and being the deputy leader of the Greens, you have to take some responsibility for that. Still, it was well known that your views were not taken in to consideration by the Green Man and those around him who made vital decisions in that government.

You can take heart from the fact that, even though you were emphatically defeated, you were not disgraced. More than five million people voted for you in your first attempt in the big race. Many were impressed by the enthusiasm you generated among Green voters who had been idle for many years.

The next big task awaiting you is to resurrect the Greens. If the Greens continue in the same vein with the same, old, tired faces at the top, they will suffer a fate similar to the Blues- become an irrelevant party at coming elections, a party with a glorious past but with absolutely no hope for the future.

In this task, don’t let the statistics fool you. They may tell you that you had forty-two per cent of the vote. The reality is that a fair share of that vote came from the North and East. At the next general elections, those votes will go mostly to Sampanthan seeya’s party and a few others- not to the Greens.

That will leave the Greens with only about thirty per cent of votes elsewhere in the country. Based on that estimate, you can be almost sure that at the next general elections- which Gota maama is sure to call at the earliest available opportunity- the Greens will again be defeated quite convincingly.

Thanks to the JR’s PR system of elections which he first tried out 30 years ago, the Greens will get a decent number of seats but the ‘pohottuwa’ chaps are sure to get a majority in the new Parliament. If you are not careful, they could even end up with that all important two-thirds majority in the House.

They would really like that. Gota maama has already let the cat out of the bag, saying that if he gets a two-thirds majority, he will repeal the 19th Amendment. That allows Mahinda maama to run again for the top job- though he will be nearly eighty years of age by the time the next election is held!

There is a big task ahead of you, Sajith. A Green candidate hasn’t won the big race since your father won it in 1989. Similarly, the Greens by themselves have not had a simple majority in Parliament since they lost that majority twenty-five years ago- though they formed two governments in that time.

Therefore, it will take a lot of work to restore peoples’ confidence in the Greens. Still, you know that this has happened before and that the Greens have come back from worse defeats, like they did in 1956 and 1970. In fact, your father, along with JR was instrumental in the latter after Dudley’s untimely death.

Why doing all this is so important is because the Blues are a spent force now. Cheerio Sirisena has made sure of that- and he says he plans to stay on. So, if the Greens suffer the same fate, there will be no opposition in Paradise- and that cannot be good, however well-intentioned Gota maama may be.

To his credit, Gota maama has started well, especially for someone with no past political experience. Still, it is worrying to see the same people who led Mahinda maama astray around Gota maama now. They could be up to their old tricks in next to no time. That is why a strong opposition is essential

The path ahead won’t be easy but then, it never was for good leaders. It wasn’t easy for JR or your father. Nor was it easy for Mahinda maama. Those who got the job just by being at the right place at the right time like the Green Man, Satellite and of course, Cheerio Sirisena, proved to be poor leaders.

You can learn a lot from your father who climbed the greasy pole of politics. You will then realise that your biggest rivals are in the Green camp. We hope you will not repeat the mistakes he made- like not accommodating his rivals such as Lalith and Gamini to some extent. We do wish you well.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS- Cheerio Sirisena presided over the demise of the Blues. Everyone wants him gone but he says he will hang around. The Green Man presided over the decline of the Greens. He is considering leaving. If you want your life to be easier, Sajith, make sure you find a job for him that will keep him quiet!