Post January Dialectics Of Democracy
By Sarath de Alwis –June 17, 2015
Sarath de Alwis
“A tale is told of a man in Paris during the upheaval in 1948, who saw a friend marching after a crowd toward the barricades. Warning him that these could not be held against the troops, that he had better keep way, he received this reply,” I must follow them. I am their leader.” – ‘Conflicts of Principle’, Lawrence Lowell,President Harvard University.
A sanguine President Sirisena plans to thwart a rebounding Rajapaksa. A restless Ranil relies on a chagrined Chandrika to offer SLFP support after elections to keep him in office.
The adjectives applied to the principal protagonists decidedly describe the dialectics of our post January democracy. Sanguine is to be ‘optimistic or positive in an apparently bad situation’. Rebound is to ‘bounce back through the air after hitting something hard’. Restless is the inability stay still or to be quiet and calm, because you are worried. Chagrin is a feeling of vexation, marked by disappointment or humiliation.
The present dissonance in Parliament is mostly due to Mr.Ranil Wickremesighe’s self-deception that Nimal Siripala will be as accommodating to him as he was to Mahinda Rajapaksa in the role of a simulated opposition leader.
The anti Rajapaksa movement lost a great opportunity when the UNP wise guys decided to hound officials and politicians who squandered state resources in promoting the candidacy of President Rajapaksa for a third term. If the TRC spent millions in distributing ‘Sil’ shrouds, if Divi Neguma spent more millions distributing calendars, and a Minister distributed ‘Sathosa’ dhal taken on credit, the candidate Mahinda Rajapsaksa should have been charged for violating election law. The law provides for filing an election petition against even the loser. If the charges were tenable the courts would have imposed the applicable punishment – the loss of civil rights for six years. Meanwhile in open court all those who aided and abetted could have been grilled by the same three eminent lawyers of the Pitipana committee who have produced a ‘Pana Yana‘ report on the bond business. Read More
