The Strengths And Weaknesses Of A Totally Corrupt Regime
Emil van der Poorten
Given Sri Lankans’ penchant for crystal-ball gazing and analysis of everything from the future of the world, through the alleged conduct of Sri Lanka’s version of Murder Incorporated by a Deputy Inspector of Police to the newest forced genuflection of a teacher or rape of a minor by a prominent politician, or reign of terror conducted by our Rana Viruwo, I have, for a time at least, felt sort of left out of the national penchant for endless prediction.
Let me try to make amends this week!
I have been provoked by the most recent defection from the ranks of the United National Party (UNP), the “Grand Old Party,” as some laying claim to political erudition have dubbed it without any respect for the fact that it is the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln in the US that owns that term, one which hardly fits our more appropriately nicknamed the “Uncle Nephew Party.”
When Dayasiri Jayasekera left the UNP under a cloud of suspicion about being, literally, bought over by a regime that wouldn’t know Judas Iscariot from Mary Magdalene, the tongues began wagging again. Even if, in the last analysis, applying all that time and trouble to the behaviour of one to whom the term “political lightweight” would be an over-statement, it cannot be sufficiently emphasized that this is not a piece of aberrant behavior but just another link in the chain of endless corruption that seems the obsession of a government that epitomizes viciousness and totally unprincipled conduct.
Given that lengthy preamble, whoever has reached this point of my narrative is certainly entitled to a return to the pith of the argument!
I would suggest that a detailed recounting of the recruitments of the good, the bad and the ugly that now fill the ranks of the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) would make the gang that they started out with look like the “good guys” in some penny dreadful of the last century. After all, those who’ve extracted substantial bribes from the medical system, monopolized paddy purchasing in the North Central Province, or done the same to sand-mining from the Mahaveli would look like paragons of virtue beside those who’ve sexually harassed track athletes of international fame, shot to death several of their supposed political allies, and been accused of raping children. Read More
