Editorial

Security

Politics

World

Letters

Sports

Obituaries

Archives

by S.Francis Perera

Electioneering for choosing an executive president is in full swing, but it does not mean that the whole nation is in the grip of mass hysteria. The overwhelming majority of the citizenry instead of succumbing to the malady have retained their sanity.

Hoodwink

There are, however, the politicians devoid of perspicacity who think they could hoodwink all with impunity. Ranil Wickremesinghe, one of the aspirants to high office, may be singled out as belonging to this category. As of late a day does not pass without the said Ranil lauding president Chandrika, for her statesmanship of high calibre. His one regret seems to be that the country is on the verge of losing her services.

It appears, after all, that such a contingency will not arise. Ranil will see to it that she will not be made redundant. He will, so he assures the nation, see that Chandrika plays a vital role in the technocracy he is to set up.

It is indeed, a pity that our leaders do no see themselves as others see them. If only Ranil is vouchsafed the privilege of seeing himself through the eyes of the common people, he will not indulge in such patently insincere talk.

He will then learn to appreciate the high standard of intelligence possessed by the people their ability to see, and to see through what is going on around them. One can make allowance for his rodomontade but not for his maudlin maunderings over the fact that Chandrika's tenure of office is drawing to an end...

Ranil claims to have been a friend of the president from the time they were children. This much is known to the public that his friendship has cooled over the years, and that now there is acrimonious and spiteful rivalry. The President has gone on record as saying that Ranil when he was Minister of Education has used his position and influence to deny her son admission to Royal College. It is a well known fact that President Chandrika is not in the habit of making allegations unless she has valid grounds.

All that need be said is that a person capable of such meanness cannot rise to lofty heights of friendship and cordiality.

It would be a great boon for a democratic state to be able to bring about friendship, understanding and co-operation between two arch-rivals in politics. When such a sublime consummation has been brought about the prevailing atmosphere will be congenial to sit and seek solutions to problems that have defied solutions for generations.

The tragedy of it is that Ranil had to wait till the eve of President Chandrika's retirement to extent to her the hand of friendship and goodwill. In this context a question rises in the mind of thoughtfully person.

Erudition

Is it that wisdom has dawned on him like a flash of lightning without warning? Or could it be Ranil is a practitioner of real politic which prescribes choosing friends and making adversaries ignoring all ethical considerations. Lately Ranil Has, as it were, gone out of the way to show that he is steeped in oriental thought and learning. (Of course, one does not mean to say he flaunts his erudition for the sake of flaunting) it won't therefore be wrong to assume that he has read Chanakya, the Indian philosopher and courier, who counsels rulers to treat individuals as friends or adversaries, so long as they in these capacities serve the ends of statecraft.

It is well that Ranil even though belatedly - has realized the merits of co-operation. What a world of good he could have done had the truth dawned on him at an earlier stage of his political career.

Opportunities for co-operation were not wanting. They came and passed him by when he did not seize them. We are in a position to remind him of the many occasions he failed to take time by the forelock. Nay, we can do much more than recall such instances. We can remind him how when President Chandrika solicited has co-operation he disdained to respond. Instead he enacted the Hamletian role of failing if not fearing to make up his mind.

The year was 2000 A.D. President Chandrika working indefatigably had designed a plan to devolve a measure of power to the north - east region. She paid Ranil the compliment of discussing its provisions with him. He showed that he agreed, and even gave his assent to presenting the plan to Parliament.

There upon with absolute sanfroid the President presented herself in parliamenet to table the plan. Without previous warning hell was let lose.

'Package'

While Ranil maintained a sphinx like silence and stillness, members of his party broke into an uproar, and went to the extent of betraying incendiary propensities.

They burnt copies of the 'Package' in the chamber of the House. The public were shocked to view on T.V. the mini conflagration in the House.

The U.N.P. Under Ranil's leadership was in power 2001 to 2003. Fortuitous circumstances had brought both Chandrika and Ranil to serve in the same government- the one as executive president and the other as prime-minister. Cohabitation was sine qua non for the smooth functioning of government.

President Chandrika in a gesture of magnanimity offered the hand of co-operation, but both Ranil and his Colleagues spurned it. Nor would they stop at that.Gallantry, it appeared, was a trait foreign to them. They usurped her powers and privileges.

They alleged that she attended cabinet meetings with a camera fitted to her hand bad, and some of them and the audacity to make vain attempts to snath it.

The crowning act of humiliation inflicted on Chandrika was for Ranil to have signed a ceasefire agreement (CFA) with the L.T.T.E. without consulting her - the Executive Head of State and Commander in-Chief of the Defence Forces. Having signed the C.F.A which has subsequently proved to be a farce - Ranil crowed that the credit for it belongs to him, the LTTE and Norwegian mediator.

With some of her vital powers snatched a way from her by the U.N.P. leader and his ministers, President Chandrika was in a sorry plight.

She looked the very picture of importance. The Prisoner of the Vatican at least fared better. During the italian war of Independence freedom fighters invaded the Vatican and claimed it as an integral part of the Italian state. Thereupon the pope shut himself in his palace, and proclaimed to the world that he was The Prisoner of the Vatican.

In like manner President Chandrika could have shut herself up in President's House, and called herself The Prisoner of President's House. This was more than what flesh and blood could put up with.

Harassment had reached the point at which even a worm would have turned. Chandrika possessed as she is with gumption and a high sense of duty hit back. She dismissed the U.N.P. regime. The entire anti UNP coalation of parties, including the J.V.P. backed her to the hilt. Ranil and his colleagues sizzled and spluttered, but in the end caved in. They disappeared into the political wilderness like 'ghosts' at cockcrow.

The U.N.P. launched a campaign of vilification, which flouted all cannons of decency. Political invective is as old as the Ancien Regime. Voltaire, Dederot and Beaumachias were three great writers who used their pens to deadly effect, in exposing the corrupt regime of Louis XVI. But not one of them stooped to the level of scurrility.

Political scribes

Today their polemical writings have found a permanent place in French literature.

On the other hand some of the political scribes of our country are quite a contrast: they willow in the cesspools of/scurrilous journalism. President Chandrika's face was superimposed on a picture of a nude woman, and posters bearing this picture were plastered on walls in the City as well as in those in the outstations. In 1999 LTTE terrorists made a bomb attack on her, and managed to rob her of the sight of one eye.

This was the cause for hilarity for coarse-minded henchmen of Ranil. A woman with an eye - guard was seen parading at gathering of U.N.P. supporters. Leaders of that party bruited it about that the bomb attack had incapacitated, President Chandrika and to vote for her was to waste votes.

Ranil must be a poor judge of men and women to imagine he could win over persons whom he and his cohorts have hurt and humiliated for decades. Or, It may be he thinks that there is a rift between Chandrika and Mahinda, and he hopes to capitalize on it for sinister ends. It is his Woolly thinking that has been the cause of twelve election defeats.

Ranil knows that if he loses the Precedential election that he will be discareded by his party.

Nincompoops the party members may be, but they will have the sense to disown a misfit to whom defeat is second nature. Ranil is now punch drunk and is not able to say the right thing nor take the right steps.

www.ceylincoproperties.com

| News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security |
| Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries | Junior Observer |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager