Protesters erase their notebook – The Island
Tuesday, April 5, 2022
The unfolding political drama is full of irony. After Mahinda Rajapaksa was defeated in the presidential race in 2015, people flocked to his residence in Tangalle, Carlton, to show their solidarity and urge him to remain active in politics. They supported him until the end and made his comeback possible. Today, people are protesting near Carlton, asking him and his family members to get out of politics!
What we are witnessing today would have happened around 2017 had Mahinda managed to secure a third term, given the way the Rajapaksa family members and their cronies fared towards the end of the UPFA government in January 2015.
When people re-elected the Rajapaksas in 2019/20, they expected the family to learn from their mistakes and act differently. But old habits die hard, and the Rajapaksas, true to themselves, began to do more of what they had been doing from 2010 to 2015 – the only difference being that Gnanakka took the place of the “seer of the palace” Sumanadasa! The economy was totally mismanaged and untold hardship caused people to take to the streets to evict the family. Instead of depending on politicians to tame the government, they chose to do it on their own and succeeded in their endeavor.
The people have overtaken the opposition, which consists of another group of failed and greedy politicians, who have ruined the country for almost five years, from January 2015 to November 2019. These great cunning and holier than you must not not be allowed to give power to the people. victory to their advantage. Some of them are obviously salivating at the idea of savoring power again; they are eager to make up for lost time and, above all, are acquitted of the lawsuits brought against them to the their SLPP counterparts.
Both the SLPP and the opposition need to be framed and made to cooperate and bring in a team of experts to clean up the economic mess, which is the root cause of the current crisis. The need to shake up many state institutions that have stood in the way of national progress should not be overlooked. The Ceylon Electricity Board is one of the main ones; ridding it of corruption is half the battle to solving the power crisis.
The SLFP withdrew from the government and the rebel SLPP deputies are convinced that they are capable of depriving the government of its parliamentary majority. The opposition rejected President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s offer of ministerial portfolios. Even if the SLPP loses its parliamentary majority, no other party will be able to gather 113 seats to form a government alone. They could, however, meet and pass a resolution calling for the dissolution of Parliament, thus causing a general election to be held. It is doubtful that any party will be able to secure a comfortable majority in the next parliament, solve current problems and assuage public anger if an election is held immediately.
Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Over the past few decades, Sri Lankans have elected misfits to parliament; they entrusted the task of developing the country to a group of politicians, who took turns to nest and let the country down. They endorsed the rule of the Rajapaksa family in 2010 giving the UPFA a huge parliamentary majority. Five years later, they shot him and opted for an experiment with yahapalana by electing a UNP-led government, which also failed miserably and, above all, encouraged bribery, corruption, abuse of power and the disposal of state property. They re-elected the Rajapaksa family in 2019/20 and rose against them after less than three years. Now they must decide whether to allow incompetent and corrupt politicians to do more of what they have been doing for five years, or make a radical change and install a technocracy to achieve progress.
We believe that the daunting challenge facing the country on the economic front cannot be overcome with the help of 225 selfish politicians; there must be real experts with integrity in key positions in the civil service to manage the affairs of the State, in particular the national economy. Thus, the need of the hour is not a general election but an interim arrangement in Parliament to create the necessary political-legal environment for capable men and women, who have excelled in their chosen fields, to accomplish the task of pulling the country out of the brink of bankruptcy and restoring the economy.
President Rajapaksa reportedly refused to step down despite people staging street protests, calling for his resignation. The opposition should seriously consider the government’s offer to form a multi-party interim administration. Further upheavals will further weaken the economy. If the president is believed to be trying to play a trick on the opposition and the people, one way out may be for Parliament to abolish the 20th Amendment and reintroduce a revised version of the 19th Amendment to curtail his executive powers.
