5th Column

It's tough going, what with satellite, sahodarayas and swameen vahanses
My Dear Malwatti Mahinda,
I thought I must write to you after seeing you at your first campaign rally at Town Hall last week, as you begin your race towards the Janaadhipathi Mandiraya.

The rally itself was a bit of a nightmare, wasn't it, with the sahodarayas hijacking the organization, not much of a crowd to show off and Somawansa sahodaraya asking you to disband the Armed Forces?

Then I heard that discussions with Arumugam's minions didn't go quite too well as they were not prepared to accept your theory that you had to be all things to all people to win the election which is why you promised the sun, moon and the stars to the sahodarayas and the swameen vahanses but that you had no intention of fulfilling all those promises.

What all this means is, dear Mahinda, that things will not be easy for you in the weeks to come. Your good friend Satellite will be returning home and calling for a few explanations as to how you made all these promises when they go against what she and her Sri Lanka Family Party has stood for over the past few years.

While there is some merit in this argument, we all know that there is very little love lost between you and Satellite who would dearly love to see Mallo in the hot seat just to ensure that the family business has a worthy successor.
But you need to be forewarned about those close to you too. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that the few Blues who dare to defy Satellite and support you, such as Mangala, Maithri and Nimal are those vying for the Premiership if you win. Of course, we know that officially Mallo is still your running mate and that is quite appropriate because all that he has been doing since the campaign begun is to run away from the country!

Even if you do win, Mahinda, I think you should resist the temptation to discard Mallo because we all saw what happened to the Greens when RP discarded Lalith and Gamini and opted for Dearly Beloved for the Premiership. Some may even say that the Greens are still in the opposition because of that!

Then there is always the possibility that Satellite on her return will throw a tantrum and insist that you cannot be given the Blue ticket because your policies are contrary to what the Blues have been saying and then land her old lieutenant Ratnasiri with the nomination. Races such as this are never won with a 'spare wheel' as Hector demonstrated over two decades ago, so I hope it won't come to that.

Anyway, we must wish you luck because you seem to need all the luck that you can muster. And it is not as if you can open one of your regular 'dansela' type meetings at Temple Trees and invite Satellite, Mallo, Thonda, Rauf, the TNA chaps and whoever else who wants to come and sort out matters, is it?

Yours truly,
Punchi Putha.
PS-And the latest story doing the rounds is that Satellite would return, deprive you of the nomination and appoint not-so-young Anura as the Blue candidate instead. And guess what their campaign slogan would be? "Nama balalai ganna oney.."!

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