First The Party, Then The Country
By Ruvan Weerasinghe –July 11, 2015
Dr. Ruvan Weerasinghe
First a card carrying member of the SLFP, then a Sri Lankan – that’s what President Maithripala Sirisena proved to be in the end. That can also be so for many politicians in the UNP, JVP, JHU or any of the plethora of parties and alliances contesting elections in Sri Lanka. We need to advocate voting for principles over parties in the forthcoming elections.
When President Maithripala Sirisena agreed to give nominations to the very person he took a courageous stand to oppose in the interest of the people of Sri Lanka, he didn’t just let them down. He dealt yet another blow to the Sri Lankan identity.
Sri Lanka has had more than its fair share of thought leaders who espoused diverse forms of identity as valid, or even more potent, than our common Sri Lankan identity. Ranging from the old caste system that still has its proponents even among some educated individuals, to the ‘brown sahib’ that gave us respectability (and jobs) among our colonial masters, we have dabbled in other forms, especially our ethnicity (as espoused by the LTTE and to some extent the JHU) and our religion (by the likes of the more extreme elements of the SLMC and the BBS).
President Maithripala Sirisena, has added yet another identity as a reasonable and valid one to replace our Sri Lankanness. While his unexpected and fearless act of defecting from a party he was so much a part of gave us hope of a statesman emerging in Sri Lanka, his capitulation to be more worried about being accused of splitting the party than letting down the people who voted for him, would probably class him with all politicians before him – not acting truly in the interest of being Sri Lankan first, and card-carrying members of a political party second (or indeed at least third, behind our philosophical worldview). So, he has unintentionally forwarded party as a more important identity for us than our nationality.
The UPFA manifesto
Can there be one? To say that a coherent manifesto is impossible for the UPFA, would be an understatement. When the President of the party still speaks of furthering the steps taken towards good governance (a word that brings distaste to the mouth, Yahapalanaya), and the majority of its top leadership scoffs at it, or more accurately hopes to put do away with it (by possibly stoning the law enforcement agencies of the state), there could be no coherent manifesto for the UPFA – nor even the SLFP.
