As we have said before, this is turning out to be one funny election. This year, election fever seems to have eclipsed even big match fever but what confuses me is whether Parliament has been dissolved after all and, if it has indeed been done, what the main issue of this election is.
Pardon me, but why I am confused is because Parliament -- which is supposed to have been dissolved with everyone ceasing to be MPs -- but ministers keep their portfolios -- met last week. They tell me it is perfectly above board and that it can be done and being no legal expert I have no quarrel with that.
From there, it gets a trifle more confusing. That was because those two treacherous turncoats of the UNP, Johnston Fernando and Indika Someone are apparently no longer MPs in the reconvened Parliament -- because they were expelled from the UNP and forgot to challenge their sacking in courts!
As you know, these days the modus operandi if you are an opposition MP is this: get elected from the UNP, rebel against Ranil, get a phone call from Basil, discuss the portfolio you want, announce that you wish to 'strengthen the hands of the President' and join the Cabinet.
Then you wash, iron and neatly put away your green shirts -- you may need them again someday -- and buy some blue ones, get expelled from the UNP and then file a case against the expulsion and then let it drag on for the lifetime of that Parliament.
Now, Johnny and Indika did this to perfection - except they forgot that last little step because they thought it was not worth the effort as Parliament was to be dissolved anyway. As a result, Johnny, poor chap, is no longer our 'honourable' Minister of Land Development, Human Settlement and Ranaviru Welfare!
And then they tell me that this allegedly dissolved Parliament must meet once more to extend the state of emergency again. I can't for the life of me understand why we need this 'emergency' if the war is over, peace has dawned and we are celebrating with kiribath on the streets, but anyway, that gives me an idea.
Sack Vi Ja Moo Lokubandara before that next session, I say to the UNP. He said 'lotuses bloom wherever Mahinda Rajapaksa sets foot' and crossed over to the UPFA, didn't he? Having once worked for the Legal Draftsman, if he isn't sacked he might even file a FR application saying he was discriminated!
Just imagine what could happen next? Parliament would reconvene, there would be no Speaker and they would have to elect a new Speaker for a dissolved Parliament! True, all this would only be of entertainment value but in the state the UNP is in, it could do with some entertainment, couldn't it?
Anyway, here we are in the throes of an election campaign choosing representatives to a Parliament which is not dissolved. To make it even more interesting we hear that two (out of 225) MPs have said it wouldn't be correct to collect their March and April salaries as the House has been dissolved.
And guess who this worthy duo are? Dinesh Gunewardena and surprise, surprise, Mervyn Silva. Now being the scion of the Boralugoda Walawwa, I'm sure Dinesh has the means to survive a month but I do feel for Silva. The poor man will be really hard hit without his pay-check from Parliament, wouldn't he?
Silva, if he is really scraping the barrel, can do one thing, though: he can dismantle all his cut-outs and billboards (our friend Dayananda says they are illegal, by the way) and sell them for scrap -- and I'm sure he will earn enough for his upkeep, not for a month but for the full six years of the next Parliament!
And, speaking of cut-outs and billboards, we saw a new form of advertising on ITN last week.
Remember the teledrama starring that one actress who dared to buck the trend and support General Fonseka, the same girl who is now a UNP candidate in the Gampaha district?
Now, she gets down at bus halts (in her teledrama role, of course) where we can clearly see in the foreground posters supporting Duminda Silva and Sudharman Radaliyagoda, the latter being the ITN's point man who is contesting from the UPFA for the Colombo district.
The advertising experts I believe call this subliminal advertising but I call it sheer brilliant campaigning: a UNP candidate promoting a UPFA candidate, what more do you want? Dayananda, if he gets to know about this will frown and issue his customary ban, I suppose, but then I for one appreciate the ingenuity!
And ITN do not have a monopoly on ingenuity either. Take our Rata Venuven Lowama Dinu Bogollagama, for instance. The good father that he is, he has written to the UN asking for a job for his son. And he is not at all shy about it, saying, it is a family matter and that 'as a father I will do just that!".
Of course all fathers do not have letterheads of the Foreign Ministry (known as the 'F' Ministry, where the F probably stands for the Family Ministry) to make such requests but then this is just a minor matter for a man who allegedly spent four and a half million rupees of state money on his daughter's birthday!
It is indeed mind-boggling that our Foreign Minister should be asking for favours from the UN when the country is virtually at war with its Secretary General but that is apparently of no concern to Boggles whose posters have suddenly changed from lounge suit to the more appropriate 'kapati kit'.
We are not sure whether all those banners and cut-outs of Rata Venuven Lowama Dinu will win for him enough votes to scrape through from Colombo but he gets my vote for the best father, far ahead of Mahinda Rajapaksa who only gave his son a place in the nomination list in the Hambantota district.
Now, if Rata Venuven Lowama Dinu has literally painted the town red (mixed with blue) with his banners, there are the odd ones out who say they won't indulge in the poster war: Champika Ranawaka and Milinda Moragoda. What can we say, except to ask them to find employment beginning April the 9th?
But as I said before, these are all distractions. At the end of this week I asked myself, what this election was all about. If media reports are anything to go by, it is about getting a two-thirds majority for the ruling party and as far as Ranil is concerned, preventing this by whatever means.
Why a two-thirds majority, I then ask myself. To have a stable Parliament says Mahinda Rajapaksa. To bring about constitutional reforms, says Maithripala Sirisena. And when I dare to ask what these reforms are, everyone stares at me as if I have just conferred the Deshamanya title on Ban ki Moon.
Some, after a little prodding and prompting will suggest that the reforms are meant to solve the ethnic issue but I dare not probe further, lest I be referred to Tissa Vitharana. The bottom line, I feel is that we are being asked for a two-thirds majority to do God knows what.
Now that is not necessarily a bad idea. We gave JRJ a five-sixths majority without really knowing that we would be stuck with his Constitution for over thirty years and we gave his nephew the leadership of the UNP without knowing that we would be stuck with him for over fifteen years, didn't we?
Politics in Sri Lanka is seldom the what-you-see-is-what-you-get type. But now we can foresee what we will get if we give a two-thirds majority: probably twenty years of rule by you-know-who. And you are given the choice to decide on April 8. Fair enough; you decide. |
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