5th Column

My dear Gota maamey,

I thought I must write to you because many issues have arisen since I wrote to you last, although it is not even three months yet since you took over the top job. We don’t see you and hear you in public as much as we saw your predecessors- though I don’t believe that would be a disadvantage for you.

Many who saw you and heard you on Independence Day commended you. The ceremony was brief by our standards. You had your military medals pinned on your shirt, so you wanted to remind us that you were still a military man at heart and only the second such head of government after Sir John.

As for the other guests at the ceremony, it was good to see you, Mahinda maama and Satellite at one event. I’m sure you would have sent an invitation to Cheerio Sirisena but he chose to be a ‘no show’. Maybe he realised at last that if he kept your company, it would prove he was a pygmy among giants.

Your speech was impressive. Even Mangala who doesn’t see eye to eye with you on most issues these days, praised it. However, he also said that many of our leaders had made great speeches but most of them had failed to do even half of what they said they would do. That would be your challenge too.

For instance, you said that you would allow the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary to function independently of each other. In other words, you are saying that you wouldn’t interfere with the latter two. Gota maamey, I hope you can keep that promise because none of your predecessors did!

Honestly, I am a bit baffled by that remark. If you wanted to allow these pillars of government to act independently, you should embrace and strengthen the 19th Amendment. However, haven’t we heard you saying more than once that you need a two-thirds majority at the next election to get rid of it?

Didn’t we all see Cheerio Sirisena, who promised to be the last Executive President and reduce the powers of the Presidency, suddenly lose his marbles and sack Ranil? It was only because of the 19th Amendment that the courts were able to contain him. If not for that, he would be the boss to this day!

Still, it is early days yet in your term of office and most people are quite prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt. In fact, there are quite a few issues that will come up in the near future which will tell us whether you will interfere with the other arms of government, like Mahinda maama did.

For instance, we are waiting to see whether you will grant pardons to persons who have been convicted for murder, like Cheerio Sirisena did. In fact, some say that all this drama about Ranjan’s tapes are nothing but an exercise to get one man released and they are expecting a pardon from you!

Then, just this week we heard how a boss of the Bird of Paradise and his wife were arrested for alleged bribery. This gentleman was flying high during Mahinda maama’s time and was in his inner circle. Many are waiting to see whether the wheels of justice will turn at the same speed for him.

Speaking of the Bird of Paradise, you earned praise for sending an aircraft to China to get our citizens exposed to the corona virus back to Paradise. Many said that, had the ‘yahapaalanaya’ chaps been in office, they would have still been debating what to do and we would have an epidemic on our hands.

Gota maamey, your big test comes when the ‘pohottuwa’ chaps face the general election. You say that there is no room for corruption under your watch. Then, what you need to do is to get rid of the corrupt people who surrounded Mahinda maama who now surround you- but can you do that?

You have every opportunity to do so. The Greens are weak and fighting over their leadership. So, even a ‘polpiththa’ (coconut husk) fielded by the ‘pohottuwa’ will win. So, the nation-even those didn’t vote for you- is waiting to see whether you have the courage to get rid of the corrupt elements.

The majority voted for you three months ago because they wanted a change. The change they wanted was not only from the ‘yahapaalanaya’ they had suffered under. They also wanted a change from the ‘Mahinda chinthanaya’ which they rejected five years ago. Please don’t forget that, Gota maamey.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS- You say you are the leader of all communities but we didn’t hear the national anthem in Tamil on Independence Day. It was Colvin who said ‘one language, two nations, two languages, one nation’. Now, you have given Eelamists a chance to say, ‘one anthem, two nations, two anthems, one nation’.