Thinking Of A President
Hema Senanayake
Peace and stability must be the focus of any development agenda. As the president of the country Maithripala Sirisena should have the same focus. Other than analyzing mere economic factors any macroeconomic analyst would concern about the political stability and peace of the country. Hence, with the same focus, I prefer to investigate the impact arising from the provision of nominations to former president Rajapaksa and his clan.
If the president Mathripala Sirisena had consciously decided rather than being succumbed to pressure to give nominations to Mahinda Rajapaksaand his group, in my view it was the best decision available for him to make after the Matara rally conducted by pro-Mahinda activists. But the decision president Sirisena made after the Nugegoda rally, held by the same group, possibly could not have been the best decision the president could have made. Being an economic analyst why do I say so?
As we know it in Sri Lanka racism is a severe threat to peace. All kind of racism is bad for the country. TNA did not give nominations to former LTTE members. Perhaps, TNA wants to deter racism in the North and East. In the South, prior to the nominations, pro-Mahinda activism wanted to be based its activities on Sinhala-Buddhist racism.
For an example, when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was summoned by the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption, pro-Mahinda activists were there in front of the Bribery Commission to protest against summoning Gotabaya. The activists who went there held a lion only flag instead of the real national flag. It was not an ad-hoc event; instead it symbolizes the true nature of protesters or the sentiment the protesters wanted to exploit. That sentiment was racism nothing else.
Then, the former president Mahinda himself began to use racist rhetoric during his rounds of visiting Buddhist temples. He openly alleged that the “Yahapalana government” was planning to close down critically important army camps in the North and East. He claimed that those camps were important to national security and closing down was a grave mistake. When TV channels went to North and East to report the true situation exist on the ground, finally it came up that in fact all those camps were closed down during his administration and none of the army camp was closed down under the Maithripala regime so far. Former president Mahinda should have known the factual situation but his intension was not talking about facts. Perhaps racism needs distorted facts.
