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| Mahinda-CBK
‘war of words’ continues Those charitable to the dynastical duo would only say "they did not put their best foot forward" and extend their "eternal blessings" to Rajapakse. Yet, the man from Giruwapattuwa won despite the legendary Bandaranaikes. He is today the fifth Executive President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. But Kumaratunga has not given up. Her war with Rajapakse appears to be hotting up judging by the daily events. Early this week, she telephoned the Presidential Secretary, Lalith Weeratunga. It is only days earlier Rajapakse named him to that top slot in the country's bureaucracy. She engaged him in a lengthy conversation and directed that he comes over and meets her. It seemed she had, like in the days of her presidency, a lot of things to discuss. They were all related to her. Weeratunga said he would have to consult President Rajapakse. Quite rightly so, for he is the new boss. Rajapakse listened to the conversation and gathered what was in the offing. His advice -- Weeratunga could go and meet Kumaratunga in his private capacity. He would not have his permission to see Kumaratunga as the Secretary to the President. The President said that would become a habit and he was not in favour of encouraging it. If she had any business, he felt, it should be directed to him. Weeratunga conveyed that to Kumaratunga. She was not all too pleased and a war of words ensued. A similar war of words occurred between Rajapakse, upon his election and Kumaratunga, as reported in this commentary last week. We publish on Page 2 in this issue, a letter Kumaratunga has sent The Sunday Times. The contents are self explanatory. I would only add that my account was a true record of events though Kumaratunga appears to be now incensed over the remarks and cast aspersions on a "reporter" for it. This is nothing new. Shooting in the dark has been a popular past time for her. In fact, she had used an old letterhead of hers to write that letter which gave the title 'The President's Office', which she's not entitled to do. She must come to terms with the fact that she's no longer the President, just a former President. When former President J.R. Jayewardene or former President D.B. Wijetunga wrote, he would say from the office of "President Jayewardene or President Wijetunga." That is because the Constitution allows them to keep the title but not to act as the current serving president. The issues involved a number of requests. Kumaratunga wanted to address officers of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police. If they were unable to be present in uniform, she preferred to ask them to come in civilian clothes. Rajapakse met the chiefs of the three services and the Inspector General of Police. One of them was to point out that if this request was allowed, it was nothing but fair that former President D.B. Wijetunga too should be permitted if he makes a request. It was decided to flatly refuse the request since it would set a very bad precedent. Moreover, it was pointed out that using the event as a precedent, more demands for such addresses could be made. Another request was for more perks —security personnel, facilities at the new office she has chosen to move in and the residence she will occupy. During the heated conversation, Weeratunga was to tell Kumaratunga she had publicly announced that she would give up perks. This, after the Cabinet under her Presidency decided to donate one and half acres of State land in Madiwala to her. The
cost of this land is said to be around Rs 900 million at a modest
estimate. It would be relevant to read the Press Release put out
by Kumaratunga's media unit after this Cabinet meeting. It said: "President
Kumaratunga had decided to forego her entitlements such as pension,
official residence, maintenance allowances for the residence and
all stipends to meet utility bills such as electricity, water etc. "The value of the land to be allocated to President Kumaratunga is insignificant compared with the entitlements she has given up and also proposes to forego in the future. The Cabinet of Ministers therefore decided to allocate the said block of land in lieu of the above." Despite that Press Release, Kumaratuanga is spending millions to renovate her new office -- the former headquarters of the Ranaviru Seva Authority. She is to move into a Government bungalow though she assured in the Press Release she would forego all her entitlements. Rajapakse had already told Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake to move into Temple Trees and planned to go to Janadipathi Mandiraya. Though Kumaratunga declared she would not wait a second more, she is now planning to move to the late Lakshman Kadirgamar's former official residence at Wijerama Mawatha. Kumaratunga has taken up the position that her security officials are not happy that she resides at the former Ranaviru office, because people go for walks in that area, but she doesn't mind using it as her office, something that drew consternation from the new government. So, she is now waiting for the former official residence of the late Kadirgamar to be prepared for her to move in as her residence. The upstairs of that house was this week water-logged due to heavy rains and a leaking roof. Another astonishing, if not shocking issue, is how Kumaratunga had signed cheques to the tune of over Rs 750 million from the President's Fund for various matters. In the case of a heart patient, payment for medical treatment abroad, is approved only after a lengthy procedure where medical reports and other documentations are made available. But she, as one source said, had dished out millions on various matters. During a farewell visit to Anuradhapura, she had donated millions to a local politician for a project there. She had written a cheque for a very large sum of money for a child related Non Governmental Organisation where Kumaratunga herself has a stake. On being informed, Rajapakse immediately ordered stop payment on the cheques. That was one of the issues Kumaratunga wanted to discuss with Weeratunga so Rajapakse could be persuaded to allow the cheques to be cashed. Ironically this is a case of things working in the reverse for Kumaratunga. It is she who had tacitly approved a CID probe on Rajapakse's Helping Hambantota project. It was now Rajapakse's turn to find out how and why Kumaratunga was helping herself and her favourites. Insiders say a probe is round the corner. Another knotty issue that has developed is Kumaratunga's refusal to nominate Dallas Allahaperuma to the vacant seat of late Lakshman Kadirgamar in Parliament. She had written to both Maithripala Sirisena, SLFP General Secretary and D.M. Jayaratne, PA General Secretary, asking them not to nominate any person. When
the issue came to the fore this week, Kumaratunga had denied media
speculation that she wanted to enter Parliament. Her associates
said the vacancy was being kept for Ms. Suganthie Kadirgamar, wife
of the late Foreign Minister, to be nominated to Parliament. But
the latter is not seeking a political career or a seat in Parliament.
The long and short of it is that Rajapakse cannot appoint his man
to Parliament. He started off on the right note saying that he wanted to prune the ever-elastic Cabinet from some 40 Ministers to 25. A good start. So, he summoned the Ministers who served Kumaratunga to Temple Trees and told them bluntly, what he wanted to do and asked if there were volunteers to drop out. He
said he would appoint them State Ministers, bringing back what President
R. Premadasa innovated. Only a few volunteered, Dilan Perera, Felix
Perera, Milroy Fernando, Jeevan Kumaratunga and Tissa Karaliyadde. For instance, he demoted Fisheries, a hugely important Ministry in this island-nation to a state ministry, but made Fisheries Housing a Ministry of cabinet-rank. Then, he has a state ministry for Botanical Gardens, and gave Mangala Samaraweera, his campaign manager the portfolios of Foreign Affairs, Ports, Aviation and Shipping. Fitting into the late Kadirgamar's shoes was bad enough, political analysts questioned the wisdom of this move. Samaraweera's own lieutenant, Sripathy Sooriyaratchchi however was sidelined rather rudely being given the state ministry of Skills Development and Employment Promotion. He quit the same day saying he didn't understand what the job meant, but came back the next day, almost to the same portfolio with the added task of being deputy minister of Plantations. Meanwhile, the Night of the Long Knives is happening within the defeated United National Party as well. Some of those who conspired to oust its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe are at work. A
group of MPs gathered at the residence of former Speaker M.H. Mohamed
and decided that they must ask Wickremesinghe to quit the leadership,
and to hand it over to deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya. They had gone
in delegation to meet Wickremesinghe to tell him so. Wickremesinghe was going to bridge the 13% gap through the 11 multi-ethnic constituencies he won, and clearly hoped the vote from the north and the east would not only have off-set that margin, but easily cleared the hurdle, an assessment that seemed to be accurate, barring the LTTE robbing him of the crown eventually. He reminded the Mohamed-Ravi Karunanayake-G.L.Peiris-Rajitha Senaratne led delegation that President D.B. Wijetunga campaigned in 1994 on a Sinhala-Buddhist theme against Chandrika Kumaratunga, and lost badly. That the Sinhala-Buddhist theme was insufficient to win an election of this magnitude, and that Rajapakse won purely because of the LTTE. Then, Wickremesinghe said that any decision to resign had to be a voluntary decision, and that a delegation such as theirs could not impose it on him. There were his supporters urging him to stay as the leader arguing that if not for the LTTE boycott, he might have been the President of the country. Tomorrow will be a crucial day for the party and its leadership, and "it might have been" are said to be the saddest words in the English language. |
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