All this with just a few licks at power….

The UNP's Duminda Silva?

There’s a lot that people might find disappointing in the Maithripala Sirisena - Ranil Wickremesinghe combo.  They promised much, made a lot of noise, appeared to sweat a bit too, but didn’t really deliver anything of substance.  

The 19th Amendment did prune some presidential powers but they couldn’t get the composition of the Constitutional Council right.  The 20th Amendment was effectively flushed down the toilet of political expediency.  Parliament was dissolve without resolving the vexed issue of preferential votes, improper representation and so on, just to save Ranil Wickremesinghe the blushes over the Bond Scam.  Price reduction was essentially eyewash.  The Foreign Ministry is now run by LTTE proxies and worse, acts as proxy for the Security Establishment.  There was a lot of talk about mega deals, rampant corruption and bringing to book wrongdoers.  Talk, mostly.  

All that said, it seems that at the micro level (relatively speaking) some currency has accrued to the law.  At the micro level, i.e. the big bucks, mega deals level politician have the decisive edge (e.g. the Bond Issue).   Still, it is good that the Deputy Minister of Justice, Sujeeva Senasinghe has been ordered to appear in court to face charges of being a public nuisance and for obstructing a police officer from discharging his duties.  That’s ‘new’ and kudos to the yahapaalana boys and girls.

The disturbing part of it is that this is the junior minister in charge of the subject of ‘Justice’ we are talking about.  He has violated election laws.  He obstructed the law.  That’s two strikes.  He threatened a police officer.  He didn't even turn up in court!  

Sujeeva is just another cut-out politician who is not averse to using strong arm tactics. Didn’t his boss, Ranil Wickremesinghe know?  Since charity ought to begin from home, has Ranil initiated disciplinary action?  Has he rapped Sujeeva on his knuckles and said ‘bad boy, bad boy Sujeeva!’?  

Yes, it is good that the law-enforcement climate has changed to the point that the Police would actually act on a citizen’s complaint.  The said officer had gone to investigate when someone complained on the 911 emergency line that a political meeting after 10 pm was causing a disturbance.  Unheard of not too long ago.    What he had to face when he went to investigate is that there’s a long way to go.  

How much further this country has to proceed is perhaps best illustrated by what happened thereafter.  Sujeeva Senasinghe using his political clout calls a press conference and accuses the police officer of being drunk.  That’s abuse.  

Sure, Senasinghe had lodged his own complaint.  That’s legit.  He claims the officer was drunk.  He is upset that no action was taken on his complaint. He whines that the officer was not subjected to a JMO examination.  That’s not cutting any ice, though.

Sujeeva Senasinghe has been a deputy minister only for 7 months.  He’s already operating like a common thug.  Ironically it is this same Sujeeva who is insinuating that his manaapa rival in the Colombo District, Ravi Karunanayake, is entertaining creatures from the underworld.  He does have a point but then when he makes it, it is laughable simply because he himself is operating as though he’s just surfaced from somewhere below the ground.  

Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe painted themselves into a corner.  Ranil, especially, knows what his underlings are capable of.  He would have known that the beasts would break through the good governance uniforms.  We don’t know if he warned them to toe the yahapaalana line.  But now that they’ve come out of their beautiful shells, he has to take action.  That’s IF he was ever really interested in ‘Change’.  If not, the voters can rest assured that Sujeeva Senasinghe is a messenger from the future.  His message is simple:  We won’t do anything different from what the previous regime did — if you think we would deliver ‘change’, ‘yahapaalanaya’ and what not, DREAM ON SUCKERS!’

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Cut out the cut-out heroes!

Hail the self-labelled 'Wise Man of Parliament'!!!!!

Someone said that Ranil Wickremesinghe had ordered his ‘cut-outs’ to be dismantled.  I haven’t seen any RW cut-outs.  So if an order had been issued it must have been on the following lines: ‘Make sure there are no cut-outs of me!’  

Whether any of this happened we do not know.  One thing is certain: a Ranil Wickremesinghe larger-than-life would not attract.  If a move was made, it was wise.  If a move hasn’t been made, that’s wise too.  

What’s disappointing is that RW hasn’t rapped the knuckles of the cut-out heroes in his party.  It is disappointing because these very same worthies were howling not too long ago about Mahinda Rajapaksa’s cut-outs.  Some of them said that cut-outs take away from the city’s beauty, never mind that they didn’t attribute the ‘beauty’ part of it to the very regime they vilified.  But they were right.  Beautification is no license for subsequent desecration.  

It is funny, really.  There’s Wijedasa Rajapakshe claiming that he is the Wise Man of the Parliament. 'ප්‍රාඥයා' (‘Praagnayaa’) actually translates as ‘intellectual’ but ‘wise man’ somehow goes better with the pomposity.  This ‘wise man’ held membership in two political parties, both representing both the lumpen proletariat and the lumpen bourgeoisie.  

He uttered not a word of protest about the dictatorial nature of the UNP Constitution.  Nothing about the Central Bank bond issue. His intellect, sorry wisdom, appeared to have gone to sleep when Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed three party loyalists to inquire into the bond matter which implicated a hand-picked Governor and a hand-picked chairman of a bank who was also a party man.  He went along with his leader’s attempt to institute an all powerful executive prime ministership in place of the much vilified all powerful executive presidency.  He did his bit, wisely, to help scuttle electoral reform.  He looked the other way when his party dumped the Right to Information Act.  Wise.  Very wise.  

Then there’s Sujeewa Senasinghe, the copper-colored MP who has done nothing of significance in or out of Parliament.  He claims or rather he has got his minions to claim that he is our future.  One worries.  Period.  

Oh, Ravi!  That’s Ravi K.  K for Karunanayake.  He’s a big boy.  He’s gone to town.  Lee Kuan Yew described Sri Lankan politics as a periodic auctioning of non-existent resources.  He got it all wrong.  Ravi K is bragging about doing what he has not done as though the doing/not-doing was all done with his own money even as the said money is essentially public funds.  He’s a master at taking credit for what other people have (claimed to have) done.  Check the hoardings.  It’s Ravi who brought down prices (they are all up now, but that’s another matter) of less than a dozen items, some of which hardly figure in the average consumer’s desirable-list.  He brought down the price of fuel, he would have us believe.  He’s done everything.  

And he’s cute.  He’s even inserted a picture of the President (leader of the SLFP and not UNP, let us not forget) to decorate his brag.  Smart.  He is Mr Generosity Unlimited.  Lovely.

Then there’s  Upul Shantha Sannasgala grabbing the walls for his campaign.  He’s used to it, being a well-known tuition master who has been peddling his wares in much the same way for several decades now.  

There are others and no doubt we’ll see other wise and generous people from other parties including those who claim they too are our future laughing at us from walls and hoardings.  But those other parties were supposed to be like that.  The UNP was supposed to be different.  

How could we forget Harin Fernando.  He came to Colombo with a bunch of people. They came in ‘CTB buses’.  Harin no doubt would have hired these buses.  They remain public property though.  Harin’s face was plastered all over those buses.  That’s ‘difference’?  A ‘better political culture’?  What does the Wise Man say?  What does the philanthropist say?  What does the Man of the Future say?  

So what has changed from the Rajapaksa days, huh?  

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