In The Reform Labyrinth
By Sarath de Alwis –September 13, 2015
Sarath de Alwis
I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? – Benjamin Disraeli
The cliché runs somewhat like this. “There’s a rainbow always after the rain.” After the rainbow what? What has the Rainbow coalition of 8th January brought us? This is for starters. Despair for democracy before 8th January has turned in to disgust of democracy after 17th August.
The consensus coalition held in place with over hundred parliamentarians receiving ministerial perks and privileges is focused on power, not on governance. It negates the principle of a principled coalition – The non-coercive coercion by the better argument.
The peevish prophets who promised us ‘change’ have given us an undated promissory note for good governance. Their priority seems to be the isolation or the quarantine of Mahinda Rajapaksa. While appreciating their dilemma, it is necessary for us to stress our priority- that of good governance and a legislature of sanity, dignity and integrity.
Mahinda Rajapaksa is more a victim than a villain. He is emblematic of our collective amnesia of a tortured past and our stubborn insistence of ignoring present reality. Three decades of conflict undermined the legitimacy of our democracy. At the end of war, we failed to restore our democratic institutions. The safety of the people was the supreme law in times of conflict. The insidious transformation of this obiter in to ‘safety of the regime’ was a brilliant piece of mind manipulation that bent a population to the will of an elite few determined on creating a deep state to perpetuate their grip on power. The strategy was to promote a Sinhala authoritarian populism. They succeeded remarkably in producing an entire mythology about the inevitable struggle against internal and external enemies.