Titanic: The President’s Metaphor For The First Hundred Days
Sarath De Alwis
The President’s metaphor was valid both as noun and adjective. His party the SLFP was the ‘Titanic’ heading for collision with the Rajapaksa iceberg. Keeping the former ‘warlord’ appeased until the 19th Amendment was enacted was indeed a titanic task.
Radiating a sense of relaxed detachment President Maithripala Sirisenaexplained why he remained silent while the UPFA general secretary announced the ‘done deal’ of nominating ex-president Mahinda Rajapakse for a parliamentary slot. It was engineered by the two General Secretaries of the UPFA and the SLFP Messers Susil Premjayanth and Anura Priyadarshana Yapa.
In distancing himself from the SLFP and UPFA decision to field ex-presidentMahinda Rajapaksa as a candidate in the parliamentary elections, President Maithripala Sirisena compared his six months in the Presidency to the Captains Bridge of the Titanic that sank on its maiden voyage.The sinking was the deadliest shipping disaster in peace time that killed more than 1500 or two thirds of its passengers.
“Steering the ship of state, in the last six months was akin to my being at the helm of the ‘Titanic’. But unlike the disastrous voyage of the cruise ship, I did not let the ship sink he said. Dismissing his predecessor’s current efforts to reverse the tide of history, the President seemed satisfied that he had steered the vessel of state in to the safety of a transit port to resume its journey from autocracy to democracy after the general election.
