This Government Cares Too Hoots For ‘Good Governance’
This Government cares too hoots for ‘good governance’
They think it’s their grandmother’s gift…
It is rumored in Colombo circles that Priyantha Jayewardene was once employed by a Sri Lankan business tycoon who was known to be very close to Chandrika Bandaranaike when she was President and when the current holder assumed office, this businessman managed to carve his path to the inner circles of the regime. He is a mega player in financial circles, not only in Sri Lanka but may be even in the entire subcontinent. His personal wealth, thanks mainly to the opening of the economy in 1977 by the United National Party Government, is enormous and some say beyond physical measure. Well, that is beside the point. Nevertheless, this tycoon’s money has virtually assured him of a semi-permanent place in any governing cabal, democratic or autocratic or even in a dictatorship. In a typical regime whose econo-political philosophy is ‘crony-capitalism’, this guy is undoubtedly one of the ‘star cronies’.
Priyantha Jayawardena
Catapulting one of his employees to the highest echelons of the Judiciary is no mean accomplishment, even for our business tycoon, with all his expendable cash and power. With many commercial and financial transaction litigations looming, favorable findings by the Supreme Court of the land could be made possible and even probable with his ‘agent’ garbed in a judicial cloak in court. The sinister planning and plotting, however crude and unsophisticated the whole process would have been, must have consumed a lot of forward thinking on the part of the players, bosses and subordinates alike.
Now it’s a fait accompli.
This Government is no foreigner to corruption; it’s no tyro in the art and science of nepotism; thinking that political power has bestowed on them the entire power one could possibly have in the Universe and they would be totally lost and forlorn the day that power is stripped from them. Consequently they would resort to any and all means to hold on to that power, come what may. Yet, unlike Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)-led coalitions in the past, these fellows seem to have mastered the craft so well. They have certainly studied the theories of Joseph Goebbels who was a German politician and Nazi Reich’s Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 1945 and other propaganda craftsmen of the Soviet-era. They are certainly not grappling in the dark. In their unholy pursuit of falsehood and deception, they have found the nerve-center of a great majority of Sri Lankans, especially Sinhalese-Buddhists. And that is this sense of false patriotism and phony Sinhalese-Buddhistness.
