Political Circus & State Paralysis
Amrit Muttukumaru
It is tragic that for us Sri Lankans, all what democracy means is to cast our vote on dubious promises and then docilely accept whatever crap is thrown at us by those elected until the next round of elections.
While it is true that the just completed elections were merely for local government bodies which normally should not gravely impact what happens at the centre, the reality is that these long postponed elections on untenable grounds have due to the pathetic performance of the so-called Yahapalana government almost from day one taken on the flavor of a referendum on its performance. Irrespective of the meanderings of spin doctors, the cold fact is that the Sirisena – Wickremesinghe combine has taken a drubbing at the hands of the recently constituted Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna whose real leader is former President, Mahinda Rajapaksa who is easily the most charismatic and popular leader the country has had in recent times among the almost 75% Sinhalese majority. The government has only itself to blame for keeping the door wide open to give the Rajapaksas another shot at leading this country prior to any credible investigation of allegations of egregious corruption, violence and abuse of power hurled in the run-up to the January and August 2015 Presidential and General Elections respectively.
A SAMPLING of this is the STRIDENT press conference of 17 December 2014 where persons close to PM Wickremesinghe with a slew of FILES in tow made reference inter alia to casino, drug, ethanol MAFIAS and MONEY LAUNDERING in locations such as St. Nevis & Kitts, Seychelles and Dubai.
Here is the link to the 17 December 2014 press conference (watch from 10:41 onwards)
This must be a ‘new low’ for promises being reneged with such impunity.
For the government worse than reneging on promises of accountability is the Yahapalana brand of alleged corruption which includes the unleashing with brazen impunity of arguably the worst financial scam this country has witnessed since independence within two months of assuming office. This is in relation to the issuance of Treasury Bonds by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
The irony is that some of the persons close to the PM castigating the Rajapaksa administration at the December 2014 press conference were also involved in the infamous ‘footnotes’ which allegedly attempted to cover-up the bond scam. In this connection, consider the following:
Response to Journalist on ‘Footnotes’
“Minister do you at any point now regret the footnotes on that COPE report? Going by what is being revealed now, do you regret it or was there a lack of information at that point?”
Watch the response from (21:25:40) – what does it indicate? Are such persons the future of the UNP?
In the context of ‘CONFLICT OF INTEREST’’ being at the CORE of the bond scam, the irrefutable fact is that it was PM Wickremesinghe who HANDPICKED Arjuna Mahendran – a foreign national to be CBSL Governor although AWARE that his son-in-law, Arjun Aloysius – virtually owned/controlled PTL (Perpetual Treasuries Limited) – a Primary Dealer. He continued to have Mahendran as CBSL Governor although aware that Mahendran had RENEGED on his ‘assurance’ to him that Arjun Aloysius will sever all links with PTL PRIOR to his appointment as CBSL Governor. Being fully confident on the propriety of the issuance of Bonds, he robustly defended the same in Parliament on 17 March 2015 despite the evidence that subsequently transpired before the PCoI.
