| The Rajpal Abeynayake Column By Rajpal Abeynayake | ||||||
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Cool heads warm hearts, big egos and lotteries Any Filipino, even one with a large tattoo on his arm that says 'make my day punk'' should know that there is a difference between people power, and the power of the thugs corporation. But in Sri Lanka every 'thug' is considered a 'person' with inalienable rights; and therefore when five or more thugs form an unlawful assembly to do anything -- that's called 'people power.'' The UNP may have first arrived at this particular definition that constitutes people power, but the PA too thinks that people power is 'thug power.' Last week's massive show of 'people power' at the Government Printers office, signifies a direct throwback to tactics of ‘people power’ of the Jayewardene era for instance. ayewardene politics included mustering thugs to stone houses of Supreme Court judges and gathering 'people power' thugs to assault somewhat peripheral figures such as Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra. So, last week the genteel UNP of Ranil Wickremesinghe suffered a relapse of Uncle Jayewardene. The 'gentrified' UNP suddenly forgot their trappings of gentrification, and forgetting yuppie hairdos and dark jackets, they suddenly took to the way of the street tough. The PA replied in kind. MP Bharata Lakshman Premachandra was there, ready to enact any 'kelani palama' scenario, if the UNP thugs corporation began raising their sarongs above spill level… The President may have asked for it -- but the UNF's reaction to the taking over the Development Lotteries Board showed that the UNF's cool heads and warm hearts are strictly reserved for the LTTE. Some of the coolest heads in the business were lost that day, no sooner than the President had made her announcement that the Development Lottery Board was being taken under her control, after Minister Moragoda has been divested of his control over it. The current UNP/UNF drift is that the problem is to be solved by 'people power' because the President had 'hijacked' constitutional process. But, the President says she is only exercising constitutional prerogative, and it appears that the UNP has conceded that she is after all, legally right. Despite all the UNP's protestations to the contrary, and the exercise of seeking legal opinions at the drop of a hat, the fact remains that the UNP is preparing for people power, on the political rationale that a popular mandate is being legally stifled by the President. The rationale is that a 'popular mandate' overrides due process and constitutional process. The UNP certainly can give it a try - solving things this way -- but the UNP needs to have not just the thugs corporation, but the people - real people - behind it. The UNP cannot hope with any real sense of optimism, that while it musters its own thugs corporation/'people', that the PA will not muster its own thugs corporation/'people' in tandem. But the UNP seems to have run completely out of options, given the fact that elections can be called by the President only. Despite all protestations to the contrary, the UNP's best bet seems to be in fact if the President does dissolve parliament, which would require the country go to polls. So, the warm hearts and cool heads of the Ranil Wickremesinghe UNP, ably supported and given appropriate sound bytes by Milinda Moragoda, seems to be on the crossroads being unable to decide whether to go back to the JR Jayewardene politics of thuggery (oops, 'people power') or not. But the UNP has too much at stake and will probably be taking an enormous risk in terms of political opportunity costs, if it really turns to 'people power' of the Jayewardene sort. If there is no genuine people's movement the UNP will only succeed in unleashing more thugs and therefore more anarchy. This will not cut well with the UNP's "international safety net.'' Though the
UNP now seems to be rather red in the face and angry in the first
flush of crisis, perhaps the UNP might veer towards the position
that after all, it is only a lottery. Of course it is not 'only
a lottery' - Milinda Moragoda knows that best, and SB Dissanayake
will tell you every hour on the hour that it is anything but a lottery. True, the UNP is feeling cowed and miserable by the President's move, and the collective UNP ego has been pummelled. Cool heads warm hearts and did anyone out there say, big egos? But apart from the thing about the ego and the id, or whatever that's making the UNPs big boys depressed at the moment, the fact is that the UNP does not necessarily have to panic that this is a bid for power by the President. The UNP/UNF does not even have to assume necessarily that even if it is a bid for power, that it will succeed. If the President takes over real institutions with real clout in the near future, she might just create the kind of indignation that the Filipino with a tattoo will be able to identify. If the President really attempts to grab Ranil Wickremesinghe, oops the Ranil Wickremesinghe government by the scrotum, say by touching key portfolios or taking over key installations (Defence, and some other unmentionable) the 'people' just may really show their power in the way it has often been done in the Philippines. Instead, the UNP seems to be saying 'we will grab the people by the scrotum, and see that they march against the President.'' This is the UNPs old personality rearing its head. But it might just do the UNP some good to keep the cool head, suppress that big ego, and kind of ignore this whole lotteries can of soup. Maybe the UNP is gravitating towards that position. Shout like mad, and give vent to that ego by saying 'we are not going to take this anymore''. But eventually, do nothing really - nothing certainly as hopeless as getting the thugs corporation to work. This way, the rather panicked heartbeat today in that much touted warm heart, might just about subside… |
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