Kekirilanthaya Diaries: the party is over, apparently

President Siripala has lamented. Apparently when he hooked up with the United Notional Party (UNP) in late 2014, he believed he was joining the part of BS (that’s Ben Stephen) Senanayake and his son Cuddly. He has found it, rather late in the day, that in fact the UNP belongs to one Sunil.  Officially he was still in a coalition (when he made this ‘revelation’) with the UNP. Naturally the UNP leadership and the rank and file we livid.

The gathered at Oxford Terrance to discuss Siripala’s rather blunt insult to the party and its loyalists.  Sunil was there of course. Kavi Karananayake was there, naturally, for he’s the facilitator of hanky-panky so necessary to fill the party coffers. Rajith Premadas, who alone thinks he’s next in line, was there. Sumangala Samaraweera, the ‘strategist’ who could not win a single election for the UNP until the party imported Siripala, was there, smoking a cigar.  Sunil’s right hand men, Deegala Ratnayake and Amila Viraj had also drawn up some chairs to join the discussion. Ukatalee Ranawaka, a friend of the party and in many ways another right hand man of the leader, had also been invited.

‘This is an insult!’ Kavi thundered. 

‘Hmmm…hmmm…,’ the others murmured. It was hard to tell if the most prominent element in their facial expression was disgust, anger, embarrassment, fear or helplessness.  

‘Let’s not be hasty, after all there’s an unwritten rule in this arrangement where people can insult each other in public!’ Sumangala tried to be pragmatic.

‘Come on, he’s insulting our founding fathers!’ Deegala said.

‘But not the present father!’ Amila quipped innocently.

Rajit threw him a withering look: ‘when he says this is not BS’ and Cuddly’s party he’s essentially saying that we have and especially our leader has dumped them a long time ago.’

‘Why are you so serious about this? He’s actually insulting himself. He’s essentially saying that he was so dumb, politically, that he didn’t know what he was getting into,’ Sunil said quietly, with a slight laugh.  

When the leader speaks, the others go quiet for 30 seconds. That’s an unwritten party rule. So they were quiet.  

Just then Palitha Senaratne, the man with a mouth that was bigger than his face, entered.

‘What’s happening Nayakathuma?’ he asked.

‘Nothing men, we were talking about Siripala’s confusion about who owns the UNP,’ Sunil updated the man.

‘Did he say that Arjun Aloysius owns it?  Did he suggest that the US Ambassador owns it? He’s been having some strange meetings with Percy lately,’ Palitha was thinking out loud.

‘No. He said that he had mistakenly believed that the UNP was still the party of BS and Cuddly,’  Sumangala explained.

‘Ah!’ said Palitha.

‘Aaaah!’ said Deegala in a lilting tone.

‘Aha!’ responded Palitha.

‘So what do we do now?’ Kavi couldn’t hide his agitation.

‘The question is, Kavi, what on earth can we do?’ Sunil said gently.

‘He’s President because of us!’ Rajith took Kavi’s side.

‘He says that if we could make anyone the President why pick him? He has a point,’ pointed out Sumangala. 

‘If we can trade insults, we can ask who owns his party, can’t we?’ young Deegala ventured. ‘After all, it’s certainly not Bancha’s party, it’s not Mrs B’s party, it’s not Chathurika’s party, heck it’s not even Percy’s party.’

‘And we can ask if he knows whose party it is!’ Deegala’s enthusiasm had rubbed off on Amila. 

‘Is it even a party?’ Kavi had recovered his good humor. 

‘He’s politically finished anyway!’ Rajith tried to be politically erudite. 

Ukatalee who had maintained a polite silence since these were party matters and he was essentially an outsider, suddenly raised his hand.

‘You don’t have to raise your hand to speak, this is not a classroom!’ Sunil said mildly.

‘I just wanted to signal a stop to this discussion,’ Ukatalee explained.

‘Who does he think he is? Does he think that he owns this party?’ Amila heard Deegala muttering under his breath.

‘Yes?’ Sunil politely inquired what the matter was.

‘Well, the man who is politically finished has just appointed Percy as the Prime Minister!’ Ukatalee measured his words.  

‘What? What the….?’ people were so surprised that they said whatever came to their minds and the volume was high enough to drown a few expletives that escaped a few mouths, including (of course) Palitha’s.

The questions came fast: how? who? what? where? when? why?

All the phones in that tiny house on Oxford Terrace started ringing at the same time. All the landlines and all the mobile phones, i.e. those of the worthies who were discussing party ownership, their aides hanging out in various parts of the building and garden, the office staff, security personnel and the cooks.

‘It is unconstitutional,’ Sunil said softly.

‘I’ll tweet it, I mean that it is unconstitutional,’ Sumangala was already in damage-control mode.

‘Let’s call the US Ambassador!’ Palitha suggested. 

There was a chorus of suggestions. Someone wanted to write a long letter to the Commonwealth Secretariat. Someone mentioned the UNHRC. Others remembered the NGO community. 

The door swung open just then. It was Surath Fonseka. 

‘The party is over,’ he simply said.

There was silence. 

‘Where’s Kavi?’ Deegala the Observant asked. 

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Kekirilanthaya Diaries: The Candidate-Debate

No, this was not something like Barrack vs Hillary. It was not a debate between candidates but a debate over a candidate. A presidential one too!  

Now Kekirilanthaya is officially a multi-party democracy. Now we know that there are parties and parties. Some are fun and some are not. Some make us feel good and some make us want to puke. This was about a party of the former kind. A national party. A united one. It was about figuring out who should ruin Kekirilanthaya. Did I say ‘ruin’? Must have been a typo and not a Freudian Slip.  

Anyway, the party we are talking about has been around for a long time. In its best days it managed its own affairs, although some idiots say the party and its leaders were always pawns of foreign powers. In its worst days, it was an embarrassment, especially for the diehard loyalists who were pragmatic enough to know that politics is the art of the possible and honorable enough to feel ashamed when leaders acted as though they were little better than slaves in tie and coat.  

These are not the best days, not for Kekirilanthaya and not for the party.  It’s been a while since party destiny was blueprinted by party and not by concerned parties from other lands. Times may change, but probably not in the foreseeable future. 

Anyway.

‘The Concerned’ had a meeting. They came from France, Germany, India, the UK and the USA, alphabetically speaking and their names, respectively, were Jean-Paul Savard, Jorn Rademacher, Surjeet Singh Lamba, Jimmy Dowrich and Atum Keshav.  Surjeet, being new to the club actually was a bit shy about breaking bread with the masters, so he joined through Skype. 

Here’s the transcript, kinda.

Keshav set the ball rolling. 

‘Not looking too good, folks.’

‘True, true, old chap,’ Dowrich concurred and added, ‘but we have to find someone; it would be a poor show to import a candidate three times in a row.’

‘May I say something?’ Lamba was polite.

‘Of course, go ahead,’ Savard was courteous. 

‘Isn’t it easier to let the people of Kekirilanthaya decide for themselves?’

‘You mean, let them elect a President and we purchase the person?’ Rademacher alluded to a time-honored method of co-optation. 

‘Well, we could, but what if we get a nutcase like that Rajawamsa dude?’ Keshav was cautious. 

‘Yes, it’s best to put our man on the high seat,’ Dowrich the ‘concurrer’ concurred. 

‘You mean, Sunil?’ Singh got down to business fast. 

‘Well…er….you know…I mean…you know what I mean?’ the American switched to American-Speak, saying nothing of substance but nevertheless being very clear.

There was a short silence and a short break during which TLC sandwiches were served. Dowrich asked for Marmite and toast, politely. 

‘Back to work!’ Keshav was all business-like.

‘Can Sunil win?’ Rademacher the Pragmatist asked the most pertinent question.

‘We can’t sell him as Mr Clean any more,’ Savard sounded sad.

‘Nor as an expert on economics,’ Lamba quipped.

‘Is there anyone else?’ Dowrich was ready to look at alternatives.

‘Sadly, no. He didn’t groom a Number Two and the party constitution doesn’t leave any room for his ouster,’ Keshav said the obvious.

‘Will we have to go with the Siripala Option?’ Savard asked.

‘That’s no longer possible,’ Rademacher was as obvious as Keshav.

‘Wait. Let’s do the Math. There’s the minority vote. Siripala has some support and he might be purchased with a Prime Ministerial carrot.  And we can lock up the presidential hopefuls of the Opposition.’ Lamba was pretty raw with his opinion.  

‘Makes sense,’ Savard said approvingly. 

‘We can throw in the threat of sanctions, the Haig and if necessary shoot some bullets in the air. I can get President Mumps to do something,’ yes, that was Keshav.

‘Let’s not be that drastic. We have the bucks, we have the state apparatus; that should be enough,’ Savard had read Gramsci.  

‘Will China mess things up?’ Lamba couldn’t resist revealing historical angst.

‘All they want is a piece of the pie. We can assure them that we’ll improve on the slice,’ Rademacher the Purchaser added his two cents. 

‘Ok folks, Sunil it is! Done! Dusted!’ 

The meeting concluded. The fate of Kekirilanthaya was decided. The gentlemen left the room. 

The waiter, who had surreptitiously recorded the entire discussion smiled and told himself ‘the people count, in ways you people can never understand.  

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