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• Namal in charge of Sri Lanka’s national policy while Mahinda takes SLPP reins

Barely five months after fleeing Temple Trees to stay secretly holed up in a Trinco naval base for several days, Mahinda Rajapaksa and son Namal last Friday launched a bold comeback bid to regain lost political power.

It was a far cry from the night of May 9, when Mahinda Rajapaksa and family had to be evacuated by air to escape public wrath, battering the gates of besieged Temple Trees. Earlier that day, SLPP goons had streamed out of the Prime Minister’s official residence, high on heady brew and high on highly charged rhetorical speeches, to do their worst at Galle Face Green. That night, in retaliatory attacks, enraged mobs had set fire to MPs homes.  It was in this backdrop, while the country was aflame, that the Rajapaksa family had taken flight to safety.

Five months out of cabinet and any public office apart from being MPs, they had remained in the shadowy backwaters of politics, opting instead to rule by proxy.  With a comfortable SLPP majority still in Parliament and servile to the family interest, they could still call the shots and keep their hand hidden.

Though brother Gotabaya had resigned as President and brother, Basil, had resigned from Parliament and gone back to his adopted country, the States, nothing of note had changed. It was still the Rajapaksa roadshow, albeit, with a new bearer at the helm of the royal litter. It even had its advantages. It was the exposed bearer who was getting bashed with rotten eggs while the family was borne aloft safely in their veiled palanquins.

But the masquerade poses its own dangers if allowed to go on for long. The folly is well known and has been immortalised in the tale of ‘Subha and Yasa’ where a bored king allows his lookalike gatekeeper to play king for a day while he himself plays gatekeeper. In a bizarre twist of role reversal, things go awry when the gatekeeper-king orders the king-gatekeeper to be beheaded. The Rajapaksas cannot afford to let the farce run for long, lest they, too, suffer the same sorry fate of the bored king and end losing their heads in a replay of ‘Subha and Yasa’.

But the water has to be tested first before they plunge in for another dip. Last month, as the precursor, elder brother Chamal’s son Shasheendra is chosen to herald a showy Rajapaksa spring.

He emerges from the family wilderness, sneaking a furtive head from the Rajapaksa burrow and splashes in the government pond to be appointed as State Minister of Irrigation on September 8. His solitary splash hardly causes any ripples to flow. Its absence, however, sends waves of relief to assure a summer of southern raptors, it is safe to nosedive and prey in its waters again.

Power, it is said, is the greatest addiction. Those who have smoked the joint cannot resist returning to their daily fix, even after getting the cold turkey treatment from the people. Old habits certainly die hard.

A month after Chamal’s son, Shasheendra, had made his reentry to public office, Mahinda and son publicly launch their bold bid to return to the corrupt uplands of power.

BACK AGAIN FOR THE RIDE: Mahinda and Namal launch their comeback bids on the same day but will their hopes to return to the uplands of power simply wither away?

The son, Namal, stages his comeback last Friday, October 7, anointed Lanka’s Czar in charge of planning the nation’s short, mid and long-term future on every front. He is appointed by the Government as the chairman of the ‘National Council Sub-Committee on Identifying Priorities in Formulating Short, Medium and Long-Term Policies’ (NCSCIPFSMLTP).

His national think tank, on all great things under the Lankan sun, comprises 10 MPs. With himself as chairman, the other nine are Government MPs Johnston Fernando, Pavithra Wanniarachchi, Sagara Kariyawasam, Asanka Navaratne, Ali Sabri Rahim, A.L.M. Ataullah, Ahamed Nazeer, the lone UNP national list MP Vajira Abeywardena and DPF MP Mano Ganesan.  With these wise men and a woman called upon to draw up the national blueprint for Sri Lanka’s future, it would seem that this formidable task which would have challenged the world’s best minds, is a piece of cake in the able hands of Parliament’s top ten.

In fact, it was no sooner said than done. The committee, it seems, had burnt the midnight oil, privately and secretively, drawing up the policies to herald vistas of prosperity long before they were even asked.

Namal Rajapaksa, Chairman of NCSCIPFSMLTP declares in a statement that policies to modernise public administrations, health, education, fisheries, food prices, power and energy, and climate change will be delivered within three time frames. He promises to give short-term proposals in one month, medium-term proposals within two months and long-term proposals within three months.

What an impressive array of subjects have now come under his purview! But see, how gallantly he bears the heavy yoke that would have flattened lesser men? Only one trifle must bug the white knight on his black stallion as he rides through government departments, now at his disposal. The trifle that bugs him must undoubtedly be how he can modernise the policy on food prices when the government updates it daily by levying more taxes. No easy task, but as he has promised, he would deliver the policy on the dot.

How’s that for efficiency and competency? No doubt, Namal will use the NCSCIPFSMLTP as his springboard to make his quantum leap in his comeback bid to land where, in all justice, he rightfully deserves. What better way to start than by first wiping his slate clean and say: ‘These problems were not caused by our government. The Yahapalana government is largely responsible for that. But it is we who had to face them.’

On the same day, whilst the son is being smeared in holy ash and ordained as overlord of Lanka’s future, the father, Mahinda Rajapaksa, gives public notice of his comeback to the political fray, and goes for gold.

He makes his stage debut since resigning in disgrace as prime minister and fleeing Temple Trees at night in fear of life. But all those incidents, and the events that led up to May 9, are now but a bad dream that had once haunted sleep. A hazy blur on his once active memory, emerging distinct only when convenient.

But let the past doze undisturbed. The time for a new beginning has dawned. The gloved hand that had rocked Lanka’s political cradle is now ready to be unsheathed.

Before the SLPP’s congregation of the faithful in Kalutara, Mahinda Rajapaksa declares: ‘The party was going to sleep when we were woken up.’ It is the trumpet call to announce his return, the rousing summons to join the holy crusade. It’s the great Rajapaksa Reawakening. The saviour is coming back to lead them again to the Promised Land. Five months after his ‘chinthanaya’ had left the nation beggared, the miracle maker is back.

The Mahinda Sulanga, or the Mahinda Wind, that their revered leader effortlessly lets off to make the faithful swoon, is to blow again and fill the land, not with the stinking air of flatulence — as his opponents would describe the wafting smell — but with the fragrant breath of celestial gods, as former acolyte Wimal Weerawansa had once extolled; the heady air which Johnston prays to breathe again.

The host — the man they call Midas — Kalutara MP Rohitha Abeywardena is in his element in his hometown. He reminisces the good times they all had had and bewails the tragedy that had befallen them now. Not a dry eye, perhaps, is left in the meeting when he openly weeps at the plight of his aged mother who was all alone at his Kalutara home on the night it was burnt. After a dramatic pause to wipe the cascading tears, he assures the listeners, ‘she narrowly escaped’.

But there are more tear-jerkers to come from this man who had experienced the full cycle of life. From rags to riches and now down and out again. Yet he harbours no hate towards those who had brought him doom. As Oscar Wilde said, that which the gods give, they take. The wise know this and, instead of moaning, they strive to rise again.

He pulls out a scrapbook where he had pasted newspaper clippings, in short, the complete works of his leader’s exploits; and describes it as the only treasure he has left in the world to have escaped — apart from mum — the flames at his burnt down house. He presents his scrapbook to his leader as the only wealth he has to give, in the manner of Prince Vessantara who gave away his two children since he had naught else to give to the wicked Jujaka.

After the Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena had made his speech, and after the hosannas had been sung in the build-up to announce his advent, Mahinda Rajapaksa takes the podium and, in a brief five-minute speech, declares he is awoken to face the challenges and triumph them.

He says: ‘The party is facing many challenges but we shall overcome them. We must first be strengthened and then we shall triumph. A government’s duty is to identify the people’s problems and solve them. Today, we have taken the steps to discharge that duty. We must get together and protect the government, protect Gotabaya’s programme, the country’s programme and Ranil’s programme. Those days we used to attack Ranil because he was a UNP fellow but now Ranil is one of us. Now he is on the correct path. We must extend our support to him.’

Apart from the slip in his reference to Gotabaya — where he was quickly corrected by a minder that it is Ranil who is the President and Gotabaya was out of the frame — his maiden speech was spot on to boost the party morale that it had not been left orphaned by the Rajapaksa parent. That their leader, ‘though made weary by time and fate’, was strong in will to strive and not to yield.

But how does it bode for President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the UNP, to be told by Mahinda that he is ‘one of us’ and he is ‘on the correct path.’ With such ‘good conduct character certificates’ from newfound friends, who needs enemies? But he better watch out if the ground is slowly being cut from under him.

How will the two Rajapaksa comebacks fare for father and son? With the son in the government saddle and father on the political mount, will they race to see another sunrise or be fated to ride into evening’s twilight?

Lanka silent on Russia’s Ukraine land annexation UN VOTE: 143 against Russia Sri Lanka abstained on Thursday from supporting a United Nations resolution condemning Russia’s recent annexation of four Ukraine regions. The resolution, which also declared that the annexation had no validity under international law, was overwhelmingly supported by 143 countries while five voted against. Among the 35 countries that abstained were Sri Lanka, India and China. Though the resolution was adopted by the UN General Assembly striking a blow for nations’ territorial integrity, Russia, used her veto powers, as expected, to thwart its adoption at the UN’s all important Security Council. With her eyes firmly set on annexing her neighbouring island, Taiwan, roughly 100 miles southeast off the Chinese coast, China’s consistent decision to abstain from condemning Russia annexing four regions of neighbouring Ukraine, is understandable. But why, pray, did India abstain? Does her long-term plans include similar designs on her neighbouring island, Sri Lanka, which she may be secretly considering as her de facto 29th pranth? India’s permanent representative to the UN explained why. He said India’s decision to abstain was “consistent with our well-thought-out national position.” So, is it also Lanka’s consistent policy to follow India’s lead? Or is it her consistent policy not to condemn any violation of the territorial integrity of a state, even in the face of a clear danger that it may be her turn next to be the victim? No such thing. The simple truth is that Lanka has no long-term foreign policy. No guiding principles to dictate consistency in her voting pattern. Her UN vote simply depends upon who filled her bowl last or whose oil will fill her tank next.