Sunday Times 2
Sri Lankan political rugby: Not moving forwards while passing the ball backwards
Contrary to the popular thinking that Lanka’s politicians have been and are playing ‘Pandu’ (cricket), they instead have been playing a kind of rugby– Not moving forward but passing the ball backward.
Consider the political scene last week:
Gamanpila gets the ball but he is not running with it; he passes it backwards to Lokuge; Lokuge is not running but flings it behind to captain Rajapaksa; Rajapaksa throws it to a bunch behind him, a scrum forms and the ball is not seen….. Meanwhile, veteran prop forward Mahinda Rajapaksa is right behind and panting, appears winded out….
The Opposing side too is not moving forwards and instead players are attacking one another…. Sajith has brought down Ranil and is holding him down lest the ball goes to the other side….
Aluthgamage and Johnny do not seem to know the game; they are sprinting towards their own line, bellowing, although the ball is on the other half….
Sirisena has pushed Ravi out of the touchline….
Looking back and blaming predecessors when not having the ability to go forward too has been a characteristic of Sri Lankan democracy since the 1950s. Bandaranaike blamed the Senanayakes, Sirima reiterated her husband’s charges, Dudley blamed Sirima and her hubby, JRJ blamed all those before him and so did all other leaders that followed. DS, however, did not blame the British because they coached him and built up his team to be one of the best in Asia at that time.
Last Thursday, we were happy to read the headlines in a State controlled newspaper about Mahinda Rajapaksa saying: ‘Leave the past, embrace future with optimism’.
Alas, he was not calling to forget the whole or relevant past but only to leave the ‘past two years to critics and to take the future into your own hands’. It’s difficult to forget only the past two years. Critics will ask: does Mahinda want his nine years of presidency, forgotten? They will say it was the period that most of today’s critical financial and political problems sprouted.
Forgetting the entire past is an impossible task, for it involves erasure of memory from somewhere deep in our brains. If we were to at least suspend talking about a limited time of the past it would be possible but it should be applicable to all parties and political families of yore and the present ones.
A possible solution to the prevailing national crisis — it has been proposed — is for all current political leaders and political parties to suspend talking about the past of one another and their parties and get down to forming a coalition government avoiding contentious issues focusing only on issues of rescuing the country. Critics will, however, point out that the Last Yahapalana government that proved to be a disaster was formed precisely with such objectives.
Besides, as we wrote in our previous comments, any change of hands of the power of governance will not be possible with the Rajapaksa family having assiduously entrenched themselves in power for over two decades being in no mood to be displaced from their thrones.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa despite the supreme chaos that has gripped the country during his two-year rule firmly believes that he retains the support of the 6.9 million voters — overwhelmingly from Sinhala-Buddhist electorates — that voted for him and has declared his intentions of going for the second term.
These are two factors that rule out any other government being formed to overcome the present crisis.
The breakup of the UNP into two rival factions with Sajith Premadasa having barely one month to prepare for the presidential hustings enabled Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the presidential election and the SLPP, the Lotus Bud party of the Rajapkasas, to stroll into the Presidential Office and Parliament. Despite the unprecedented crises the nation is going through, the Rajapaksas are confident about going to the polls because there is virtually no effective opposition.
Some UNPers are in search of a leader but history shows that an effective leader cannot be cherry picked but becomes a leader on his own determination or falls out from unexpected places such as after an egg-hopper dinner.
Meanwhile, geopolitical forces are at play around the Pearl of the Orient. Whatever the Neutral Non-Aligned policy of the government may mean, the two foremost geopolitical forces are battling it out harbour-to-harbour in Sri Lanka. From harbours will it advance to real estate inland?
While the Pearl of the Orient caught between two great power blocs and the deep blue Indian Ocean is being buffetted by these forces, Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabraal is spewing out on TV high-flown economic jargon in Sinhala and English to the man-on-the-street in search of a gas cylinder and peasants whose crops have been ruined without fertiliser they had always been using and are now demonstrating on the highways. The Central Bank’s gold reserves are diminishing and poor folk know well when they are compelled to pawn/sell their humble but treasured wedding rings and necklaces, the end is nigh for them. And so it must be for Central Banks.