Editorial-August 13, 2013
The late President Ranasinghe Premadasa drew heavy flak when he launched his presidential mobile service. His critics accused him of making inroads into the Provincial Councils and the local government authorities and bypassing the state administrative setup to reach out to the ordinary people direct for expediency. He was also blamed for running a ‘One Man Show’.
President Premadasa, no doubt, sought political mileage from that programme. But, he had to do what he did because he was convinced that he could not depend on politicians or bureaucrats to solve the problems of the masses. His method cost the public purse dear but it proved to be a boon to the hapless people who had to waste weeks, if not months, to get even a national identity card owing to bureaucratic lethargy and inefficiency.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa is apparently in a similar predicament. Not even a bus strike gets settled without his intervention. Now, he has had to step in to solve the Weliweriya water problem. He is reported to have ordered that a factory which is allegedly polluting ground water in the area be relocated and no new BoI factories be allowed to be set up outside the designated industrial zones. Besides, action has been taken to provide the resentful residents with clean water and to expedite a water supply project in the area. This solution had been there right along but, unfortunately, nobody cared to adopt it until the President intervened.
The question is what 52 elected government representatives and countless bureaucrats in the Gampaha district had been doing until people staged a protest and three lives were lost. Most ruling party politicians swing into action only when their henchmen on the wrong side of the law happen to get into trouble. They who storm police stations to secure the release of bootleggers when shebeens are raided do precious little when people cry out for clean water. Had they made a serious effort to address the issue of ground water contamination and offered the same solution as the President before irate villagers took to the streets, the unfortunate crackdown that shook the country could have been avoided.
Why should the public pay through the nose to maintain so many politicians and bureaucrats when the President has to do their work?
The problem with political jokes
A 27-year-old Australian woman, Stephanie Banister, has pulled out of an election down under following blunders she made in a television interview. She called Islam a country and Jews worshippers of Jesus Christ while confusing ‘haram’ with the holy Koran. The Guardian (UK) said it all in a headline replete with lambent wit: ‘One Nation candidate Stephanie Banister puts Islam on the map’.
The problem with political jokes, as Bernard Shaw is believed to have said, is that they get elected! Examples do abound in this country. Once we had a minister who made his mark in politics, in a manner of speaking, as a clown; he even declared his readiness to partake of sereppu soup (made from his political master’s leather slippers). Worse, he was put in charge of the media!
In a TV show, a youthful female candidate contesting the last parliamentary election not only admitted she knew nothing about the country’s Constitution but also had the chutzpah to say that she was not interested in it at all because it was beyond her ken. She made a series of gaffes which made her cut a very pathetic a figure. It was so toe-curling for the interviewer that the live interview was brought to an abrupt end. Many thought she had ruined her chances of being elected. But, to their surprise she won hands down, beating as she did several veteran politicians on the preferential votes list. Her seniors had been in politics for decades and she had only acted in a hokey soap opera!
There are many other politicians of Stephanie’s ilk here and all of them are going great guns. Among them is a person who promised a harbour in Polonnaruwa in the landlocked North Central Province!
Stephanie is in trouble because she is living in the wrong country. She is an active member of the One Nation Party opposed to immigration. But, if she seeks a successful political career, it is high time she seriously considered migrating to Sri Lanka, the Land of Opportunity for blundering politicians.
