Columns

Oh, what a national tragedy. What a fall was there, my countrymen, if one might temporarily dip into the words of Mark Antony. After all, they too were uttered at an unexpected moment of chaos at the assassination of Caesar.

But this was not such a historical moment that brought the citizens of Rome onto the streets, calling for the deaths of Caesar’s assassins.

This was a quiet time, perhaps in that evil hour of midnight when political hara-kiri was considered a far more supreme sacrifice than being beaten to an ignominious political end with the votes of an outraged people tired of seeing the same old faces that have over the years pretended to serve a nation and the people who elected them to power but were busy serving themselves.

If one was reminded of the words of one of our former prime ministers—the outspoken Sri John Kotelawala who had no time to mince words—”hande”athey thiyanakan beda ganilla” (when the spoon is in your hand, serve yourself), words as telling in our political ethos as perhaps Mark Antony’s to the Roman citizens.

Not many would have heard of this piece of news, for it happened while Sri Lanka’s people were celebrating the outcome of the presidential election while others were commiserating—nay, even weeping—when even the last-minute confidence of their bloated leaders was more than punctured, enough to drive them into retirement.

Scant wonder when they are surrounded by the vain and the in vain who labour under the delusion that without them Sri Lanka will fall into the abyss from which nobody could rescue this nation but themselves.

While the victorious at the presidential election were putting their heads together in the first acts of governance, others who still had hopes of finding a convenient and another cosy joy ride for the next five years were too busy trying to convince a disgusted electorate determined to send them into the political sunset that they were still worthy enough to serve the nation and the people.

So busy were their political masters trying to decide whether some of their lot should be sacrificed at the altar of political expedience or sent permanently to grass that they, who were wondering over Hamletian doubts whether to be or not to be candidates at the parliamentary election, seemed to have missed or just ignored the news.

That is perhaps why some have never heard this news.

Well, it seems that Mahinda Yapa Abeywardana, the Speaker of our worthy people’s assembly located at Diyawanna Oya, had decided to quit politics, a news report said. A long-standing politician, he was sitting as Speaker in the last four years after the ‘Pohottuwa’ swept the 2020 general election that brought Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family to power. Now this landed proprietor is looking to land safely before the voters look for him. But nothing is certain in these uncertain times.

Being a Rajapaksa loyalist and useful as a Speaker in times of need, he was made Speaker and served his purpose to the point that not too long ago there was a no-confidence motion moved against him, which naturally was defeated for the Pohottuwa still held sway in the House.

While the political antics in the House did cause much consternation, annoyance, and sometimes comic opera, not to mention many breaches of privilege, what concerns me at this time is Speaker Abeywardana’s blatant abuse of power and privilege.

Not many knew that he had packed his Speaker’s office with his close family, giving them lucrative jobs with privileges that normal staff would not have been fathered with had they not been his kith and kin.

None of this would have been made public had the media not sought information from the Parliament Secretariat, which as usual tried to hide the information just as it refused to divulge the educational qualifications—if any—of the MPs on the grounds that it was privileged, personal information.

It took the media to invoke the Right to Information Act—a law that entered the statute books thanks to Ranil Wickremesinghe, who as prime minister sometime in 2003 pushed for it vigorously until it was passed in parliament.

Now what irks me is that what Mahinda Abeywardana did was blatant nepotism, giving jobs to his relatives in his own office with privileges that they are unlikely to have got anywhere else and also provided other jobs to relatives and friends inside parliament, but the reluctance of sections of the media to make public such nepotism or even mention it at relevant occasions, while others were crying out for jobs.

Meanwhile, the Rajapaksas have managed to push another henchman into the staff so that even though parliament is dissolved, he will be nicely ensconced when the new parliament meets next month.

As news of more and more of our national saviours fleeing the active political scene spreads, we hear of veterans such as Bandula Gunawardena, a minister for all seasons and all parties, calling it quits, perhaps intent on engaging in filmmaking among other activities.

Personally, I would love to see Bandula Gunawardena playing Bandula Gunawardena in what would be an epic drama, after all the years as a politician of varying hues.

As the Bard said, one man in his lifetime plays many parts, and dear Bandula has played many parts, some of them called “pal parts”. He has had his entrances. Now it’s time for his exit. He knows it. So do the voters.

There are so many like him who know well enough when their time is up and decide to leave before the voters make the decision. It will not be long before the political stage becomes empty as the old actors make their exit with or without the traditional bow.

Still, one cannot forget how those presidential advisers and other maestros quickly departed to their convenient abodes, leaving their luxury vehicles wherever possible, especially opposite their own spacious offices. What they must be missing.

Well, so do we, watching them jump, only to jump ship again. But one jumps from a sinking ship, surely not onto a sinking ship.

Just imagine Sri Lanka without our nation of saviours. What times we live in.

(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.)