‘Māra’ Actions Of Maithri
P. Soma Palan
I refer to the news Report in the Daily Mirror of 5h December, under the heading “Instability will end in a week”, where views expressed by the President, Maithripala Sirisena, at the Annual Convention of the SLFP, were given, and also to his latest new theory, that is a “struggle between National and Foreign thinking “, which appeared in the Daily Mirror of 10th December. I wish to comment on bot
The President made triple actions, one after another, which can be described in the popular Sinhala market language as “Māra”, which I guess is devilish, and far from Maithri. (a) He sacked the Prime Minister of the Country in one shot, and appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa as new Prime Minister (b) Prorogued Parliament to preempt a Motion of No Confidence against the new PM, allowing space to garner sufficient majority from the Opposition by bidding a price, like at the IPL auction, to entice the would be Hop, Step Jumpers.
Petitions filed in the Appeal and Supreme Courts
The President had declared at the outset at the Convention that “I would honour and accept whatever ruling passed by the two apex Courts in the Country.” In the same breadth, he pronounced a counter view of the people, which really is his view that “people in the Country hold different views on the recent Orders given by the Courts. Some say it was a good one and others say it was like the Chief Incumbent of a temple making a preaching that should have been delivered by the Mahanayake of the Nikaya”. This is certainly not the mark of a person who would “honour and accept” the rulings of Judicial Courts. This is, contemptibly denigrating the highest Judicial Courts to that of a Temple Incumbent. What matters is not the opinion of the public, but the Judicial decisions of the Courts. The Courts are temples of Justice, higher than the temples of Mahanayakes.
The Rationale for Quitting the SLFP
The President MS says that “I quit the SLFP to fight against corruption, selling of State assets, waste and collapse of the rule of law”. But deliberately omits to mention under whose rule these happened. Also states that on 26th October, “I took a decision, on the same reasons, to fire Ranil Wickremasinghe, PM and appoint Mahinda Rajapaksa to replace him”. Isn’t it sheer lunacy to restore the same corrupt Mahinda Rajapaksa as PM, whom he vigorously fought to get rid of? The Prez says the two decisions he took (a) to quit the SLFP and (b) fire Ranil as PM “were correct, prudent and timely decisions”. Decision (a) is not disputed. But (b) is questionable. It is not his subjective view of what is correct, prudent and timely is, what is required, but scrupulously and stringently acting according to the Constitution of the country. Further, he says that the “objective of those judgments were to restore decency, the rule of law and spiritual cleanliness in the Society”.
The events that followed showed how true it was. We saw this being launched in the solemn Assembly, the Parliament, by unleashing indecency, law of the jungle, spiritual depravity, violence, thuggery, hooliganism, and man-handling the Speaker and usurping his Chair.
Destroying the hopes of 6.2 million Voters
