cat'S eye

The utterances they made

Ohmegosh! This feline is at sixes and sevens, not the usual cat-calm does she have. First of all the President announced the dissolution of Parliament - jolly good for those Blues who were hoping this step would be delayed until they got their act together with many pulling this way and that - and the delight of the UNP faced with two no confidence accusations and the COPE report on the Central Bank issue.

No purring peace for this Tabby

The lack of cat-calm for Menika was further aggravated by the announcement made on Tuesday that Mahinda Rajapaksa would announce whether he would be coming forward to contest parliamentary elections. The proclamation was to be made from his ancestral place Medamulana on Wednesday, July 1, (Poya day), at 9.00 a.m.

How many surmises Menika sifted through. What was his announcement going to be was the major surmise. Then, would he make his announcement as he did his defeat on January 9 standing on a window sill, clinging on to the top ledge, or would he be seated majestically.

Would a helicopter sweep him in and windblown and sand-splattered would he shout out his decision with a crowd of weeping women cheering this time? Kumari waited quite unlike a usually settled feline, and listened to news off and on switching off bana preachings, and phoned people with the urgent question: What was the proclamation? There was really no need for this haste to hear it; the conclusion was foregone - vaulting ambition and needing power to annihilate the FCID.

And then he did make the announcement he was coming forward to be elected (or rejected adds Menika) because the people want him to.

As seen on Wednesday evening on TV, he pointed forwards (and he was pointing at me too) and said: "You want me to be elected and serve you. The country needs me" (or words to that tune).

A Thursday daily reported: "Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday said he would contest the next general election as the people had asked him repeatedly to do so." Menika loudly proclaims: Not I Sir. You Sir? Even in this instance is a twist to the truth. So here is absolute altruism; sacrificing his hard earned retirement to serve us the people; coming back to politics after savouring temple-going all the time, never mind the political asides said in these sacred premises. How very national minded; how self-sacrificing; how like a martyr!

The Lady strikes back

The surprising counter announcement was that same day from the Lady celebrating her 70th birthday distributing dry rations to the needy.

Her announcement: "Aha! If he contests I too will contest." A couple of days earlier at the Maligawa when she paid her respects to the Mahanayakes who wished her well, embarking as she was on her three score and ten years of age, she voiced a sharp aside which was quite up this cat's street - catty in essence. A media man asked Madam CBK whether she thinks Mahinda Rajapaksa will come back to politics by contesting the general elections.

Madam's reply: "Please do not spoil this special day of mine by mentioning that name!" Bravo Madam! You had a long period of tolerance of the Reporter and your number one bête noire.

Up from a long nap!

On Tuesday, June 30, Somawansa Amarasingha's sage saying was reported in the newspapers. "I have a presidential mania." Qualifying this quixotic statement he said "But it is aimed at the abolition of the executive presidency as stated by our late leader Rohana Wijeweera."

He made this announcement at the first convention of his newly formed party - the Janatha Sevaka Pakshaya (JSP) at the Colombo New Town Hall on June 29. This cat wonders how many rats attended this meeting. One would think he wanted to be President.

He quotes his ex-leader whom he deserted, we were made to believe, by being bundled away to England by an in-law with clout when Wijeweera was pleading for his life, caught by the then Minister of Defence Ranjan Wijeratne, and spewing out the names of those in second and third command of the then JVP in a bid to save his life.

So one asks whether Somawansa Amarasingha has metamorphosed into a Rip Van Winkle getting up from deep sleep to quote his long dead leader about a matter that has been settled, meaning that the President remains executive with a clipping of wings. He seemed asleep in a newspaper photograph that caught him seated on the ground in the Independence Building.

What was his one man protest about? Insufficient security given to the President! Menika comments with a sad sigh: we in Sri Lanka are full of nuts and bolts.

President speaks out against the drug menace

Menika cheered and purred with anticipation at what the President said at a recent public event: he approves the reinstatement of capital punishment so drug dealers are decimated. He meant not life imprisonment but the passing and execution of the death sentence. That is a mighty statement to be made by a person who is provenly and obviously a meditating Buddhist who knows the Buddha's Dhamma well. Why this extreme measure? Because the President sees the ravage caused by drug barons flooding the country with dangerous drugs.

He seems particularly concerned by the fact that schoolboys are being sold pills which give them a high but damage their brains irreparably. During the previous regime noise was made about the drug menace; a few haalmessas were netted and the big fish, pronounced to be shielded by their political clout or connections, went ahead with their lucrative drug business.

Even the arrest of Wele Suda did not bring forth the expected arrests. But now that the President has spoken so strongly against drugs and for stringent measures of punishment, we may see a clean-up of this menace that has tentacled the entire island, Jaffna included.

So it's an immediate future of hustings gathering volume and Mahinda Rajapaksa sending those SLFPers who were not in the Medamulana picture of July 1 scurrying hither and thither in a scramble to save their political skins and seats in Parliament. More so for those who crowded the picture; their political future is more uncertain. Hopefully drug importers and dealers are also in perturbation; sweating and burning in the heat of their fear.

Menika