Columns

When this column appears this morning, it is quite unlikely we would know who the country’s president, elected by the people instead of a dubious collective of representatives with an even more questionable mandate, would be.

Not that it really matters. A few more hours spent in speculation would hardly make a difference. But if the counting takes much longer, it provides a fitting and legitimate moment for the more thirsty and dehydrated sections of our population with a penchant to stretch their hands for the glass, if not the bottle, to enter into the spirit of things.

A few more hours would not really make a difference. In fact, it would be more acceptable. By the time bead counters finish their job and announce the results, it would be the ideal moment for celebration or commiseration.

But then there are the thousands of others who would not care a brass farthing (as the Brits used to say in the days of the farthing) or dip liberally into their accumulated stockpiles, in the belief that they would continue to expand their dollar assets come Ranil or Sajith and their more liberal economic policies than that of their feared rival.

That should make Governor Nandalal Weerasinghe’s face blush and think of handing over his money printing machines to some of Colombo’s elite or taking a one-way ticket to the IMF for all the backing he gave to this capitalist institution more concerned about squeezing the poor and helping its western overlords.

As I write this, there are reports floating around that two of the Rajapaksa brothers have flown the coup and headed west. That should come as no surprise. Basil, cynically called the seven-brained genius, probably thought he might as well go and help Kamala Harris win the US presidency with elections there due soon, having miserably failed in his country of birth. If Ranil won’t, maybe Kamala will.

Some reports said that short-time president Gotabaya Rajapaksa too took wing, but this time on a civilian flight, unlike when he took a boat and an air force plane to the neighbouring Maldives. But then he eventually returned home because nobody would have him for long. He is said to have gone to India on a pilgrimage. Well, if so, he might have to do a lot of praying seeing how often his name was mentioned in the campaign trail.

But he too could throw in his lot with the Kamala Harris campaign offering advice on how to make stupid decisions given by equally stupid advisers. Perhaps Julie Chang, if she has not long overstayed her visit, should fire off a cable warning the vice president of the impending Sri Lanka virus that could be as irritating as monkeypox. After all, they had over the years been up to monkey tricks and finally found somebody to cling on the IMF apron and drive a quarter of our population below the poverty line.

It was so funny reading the slogan that propped up rather late in the campaign saying “Sri Lanka can” to employ the English translation. Of course, Sri Lanka can—but only if the people thrown into the Sri Lanka waste can decrepit politicians with an end-by date and ready to sell our motherland to any Tom, Dick, and Adani in the name of development.

Sri Lanka can do many things if those who govern the country make rigorous and genuine efforts to catch the crooks from top to bottom who have robbed state assets, supported policies that made the country poorer but made it easier to push through projects or deals, ignored or violated the prescribed tender procedure, and other underhanded corrupt deals that have been to the detriment of the country.

But not so to those at the centre and even periphery of these so-called development projects that will take the country to the apex of the developed world.

That would of course be nice if Sri Lanka’s old and young did not have to wait another 20 years to enjoy the great economic dawn.

But while the country waits with tremendous anticipation to see the first sight of the sun rising over the horizon, their acolytes and cronies, who have sucked the lifeblood of a once rich and respected country, would be long gone with gunny bags of loot already stashed away in offshore accounts and property and economic ventures while the citizenry sits and waits for Godot.

The other day when opposition politician Mujibur Rahman said some 80 MPs are ready to leave the country due to President Wickremesinghe’s policies, up and spake the security minister Tiran Alles seemed to rave in saying he has a 10-year visa that could take him to any country.

Would that not be nice if he could show that visa to the struggling Sri Lankans standing for days outside the Immigration department trying to obtain a passport and hundreds—nay thousands—of foreign tourists trying to obtain an entry visa to spend a holiday here? And here we are crying for foreign money to flow into the country.

Wonder where he got this visa from—the same company VFS or some such thing—that Alles promoted in cabinet while some countries, such as the UK, had terminated agreements with it, as the London-based magazine Private Eye exposed earlier this year and which this column cited a couple of months back.

I mean, Alles must be one of a handful, if not the only one, with such a 10-year visa with which he could whizz into and whizz out of any country without a by-your-leave. Wonder whether that allows him free entry to Mars now that private entrepreneurs are making or planning trips to outer space.

At the eleventh hour of the end of campaigning for candidates to yesterday’s election, there was a TV programme announcing a survey conducted by an unnamed state university and an “Independent” organisation—neither of which I could catch—and presented by some attorney-at-law from some legal organisation. If I heard the blackcoat correct, he said most university students in both state and private universities claimed they would vote for President Wickremesinghe, and the survey showed he should win the election or something like that.

I tried to trace that video from some social media platform that seemed responsible but failed as I wanted to preserve it for future use, if not for posterity as an important historical study. But I could not find it again, perhaps due to computer illiteracy. But that should serve some use for those venturing into the field of public opinion surveys, especially what to avoid.

Some of you might remember that many years ago, ahead of a general election, a rather well-known astrologer predicted that the government would win and even said so on TV. The day after the results were announced and some were looking for him—certainly not for consultation—he appeared to have left his home in the suburbs of Colombo. Weeks, or was it a month or two later, he emerged in Kandy.

We would not have to wait too long to find out whether the masterminds behind this unnamed—that’s what I thought, for I cannot remember a name or that of the “independent” entity—hit the nail on the head or the thumb.

Or should we have turned to Gnana Akka, to begin with? Time will tell, no.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)