Editorial-December 20, 2014
Our stable-mate, The Island, yesterday did some useful memory jogging about the Friday Forum statement regarding Higher Education Minister S.B. Dissanayake’s offensive remarks about stripping former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga of her clothes and making her run naked on the streets. Dissanayake, once a great buddy of CBK has, as everybody knows done some great leaps from one side of the political spectrum to the other, enjoying at various times many personal advantages and powerful positions as a result. He’s a good platform speaker who can hold a crowd and his patrons both in the blue and green corners have made good use of his not inconsiderable skills as a political mover and shaker. Nobody would seriously expect SB, who was once sentenced to jail by then Chief Justice Sarath. N. Silva, who did neither himself nor his office any credit by some of his judgments for which he is now apologizing, to say sorry and resign as Friday Forum has recommended. That, unfortunately, is not the way the game is played in this free, sovereign, democratic socialist republic as we call ourselves.
SB spent much of his two-year jail term in the Merchant’s Ward of the General (now National) Hospital, Colombo. His conviction of disparaging the courts did not cost him his parliamentary seat; President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whom he now serves loyally (until the next jump?) gave him a pardon. Perhaps Rajapaksa regrets placing this mighty midget whose record does not bear serious examination in charge of higher education. Whatever he was expected to do there, he has succeeded in alienating most of the academic community, once solidly behind Mahinda Rajapaksa at this crucial election time. While Dissanayake’s ugly statement about what needs to be done to CBK would have turned many stomachs, as our colleague in The Island reminded yesterday, this was actually done to a UNP supporter at the infamous North Western (Wayamba) Provincial Council election when Chandrika was president. And as far as we (or the country) know, nothing was done to the perpetrators. In 1977, after the UNP landslide, some unspeakable atrocities were committed by victors on the rampage and this, The Island said, included stripping women of their clothing. While Friday Forum, whose membership comprises a group of reputed people of the highest integrity who performs a very useful public interest function, can certainly severely reprimand bad mouths like SB, most politicians on both sides of the divide cannot. They have countenanced all kinds of devilry while in office and done little to deal with offenders owning them allegiance. Examples are legion and our colleague’s memory jogging most useful.
We tend to agree with President Rajapaksa, whose campaign is clearly flush with money and who enjoys all the handicaps of incumbency including many state assets that most in the saddle freely exploit, that Maithripala Sirisena would not have been the common candidate had he been made prime minister. The challenger would then have closed his eyes to the all very visible faults of Rajapaksa and his government that he highlights today. But that’s the way that the papadam has long crumbled. It was better, no doubt, in the past in the early post-Independence years but from the 1960s the situation has progressively deteriorated with politics offering rich rewards at national, provincial and local levels to most of those enjoying elected office. Sycophantic bureaucrats who fall over each other to do their bidding, picking up crumbs from their table, make the situation worse. We have now reached a stage where a political VIP had the brass to openly proclaim that those in office have already made their bucks and need no more, so it’s best to not to elect a new bunch of locusts who need to make money! A ruling party MP was reported to have taken some suspects arrested for allegedly torching a platform erected for Sirisena away from police custody. He says that he did that to produce them in court. Since when do MPs do police work? And when suspects are driven to court in an MPs vehicle, what signal does it give the court and the general public? Asked whether the police had objected to this unusual method of delivering suspects to court, the MP has pithily remarked ewa koheda math ekka – "how can they (police) tangle with me" in rough transliteration.
Asked about his opinion of the possible changing of the guard at an impending election, a commentator is famously quoted to have said "same shit, new flies." That is surely an approximation of today’s situation. If there is a change of president, all those surrounding the challenger will want to stake out various claims for themselves and dispense patronage that will result in new flies stuffing their pockets. Now that the incumbent has set the bad example of a jumbo cabinet of over a hundred ministers – people have lost count of the actual figure – that precedent will be hard to drop. It is indefensible that a country with a population of a little over 20 million people have a public sector quantified the other day at 1.4 million. The way to solve unemployment is not to bloat the public sector but this has long been done. Jobs for the boys (and girls) are the toughest call on elected representatives at all levels and the easiest way of satisfying that demand is by inflating the state payroll. These jobs are not productive and the taxes of the people go to pay those who occupy them. To cap it all, national leaders boast about the number of jobs they have created.
Parliament in a rare gesture of unanimity enacted the 17th Amendment which admittedly had many flaws. The various independent commissions it created had the capability of separating politics from administration and improving governance that had plunged to unplumbed depths at present. Instead of correcting the weaknesses that were identified, the 17th Amendment was scuttled altogether via the 18th Amendment which removed the two-term limit on the presidency which is a salutary feature in any democracy. There was a Supreme Court judgment which held that it had enhanced rather than diminished the franchise and said there was no need for a referendum. The two thirds majority which enabled the constitutional change was not won electorally but by engineering defections, for consideration of political office. Sadly such defections of MPs elected under proportional representation where the elector first voted for a party before expressing any candidate preference was upheld by no less than the Supreme Court and this country is burdened with the sorry situation we live with today.
Whether the contest on Jan. 8 will be as tight as predicted by some we must wait and see. The people can only hope that whatever the result, it would be good for the country. If the incumbent is re-elected, he would perhaps make the course correction that is obviously needed. The challenger, if he makes it, will hopefully keep his promises and give are people not only good governance but also a better future.
