THE UNQUENCHABLE THIRST FOR POWER

24 February 2014 08:52 pm Views - 3651

What is it that drives a politician?  The answer is as simple as it is tragic. It is the love, and an unquenchable thirst, for power.  What should be the reason for any politician or other person seeking power? That answer too is simple.  It is to benefit the Country.  To put the Country first, above self, above family, above kith and kin and above all else. Though the answer to that question is simple, does anybody anywhere seek power for that purpose???  Once again the answer is simple.  It is a tragic, NO.  


One look at the current Sri Lankan political scene will prove the truth of what I say.  The best example is the United National Party, the party that is presumed by many to be the alternate government.  That purported `loyalists’ of the perennial loser Wickremesinghe who is said to `lead’ it, and the purported `reformists’ both say they seek to topple the Government and to seek to place the UNP in the citadel of power is indisputable.  However, it is also indisputable that both factions admit the lack of any kind of unity or consensus within the party.  
Even according to the purported `loyalists’, Wickremesinghe is by no means a person suitable to lead the Country or a person who is fit to be entrusted by the People with the leadership of the Country – for if he was, they would not be on the look out for a `common candidate’ and even descend to seeking to ruin the Venerable Maduluwawe Sobitha still further by propelling him as a `common opposition candidate’ for the Presidency.  I say this because the Ven. Sobitha himself has by a recent statement damned himself for good.  Ven. Sobitha has said that his sole purpose in entering politics is to abolish the Executive Presidency. 


The first thing that any person whosoever with even a nodding  acquaintance with the Constitution and governmental powers should know is that the Executive President of the Country, however powerful he may be, does not have even the power to legislate in respect of the fee of a licence for a dog.  The President, however powerful he may be, cannot himself pass or enact any legislation.  That is entirely the function of Parliament.  Of course, we in Sri Lanka have to live with the disastrous situation in which Parliament is but a rubber stamp and/or a puppet of the President. This has been so for many years and will presumably continue.  Thus, if the Ven. Sobitha promises to abolish Executive Presidency it follows that he has given to the People a promise he cannot keep as his predecessor Gen. Sarath Fonseka did.  On the other hand, does Ven. Sobitha mean that he, like the incumbent President will have a stooge Parliament to do his bidding?  If that be so, what difference is there between him and the incumbent President and those who held that office before him?  The simple fact of the matter is that the Country needs a change for the better not merely a change for the sake of a change.  

"Ven. Sobitha Thera promises to abolish Executive Presidency it follows that he has given to the people a promise he cannot keep as his predecessor Gen. Sarath Fonseka did"

One look at the UNP and any lingering doubts about the tragic situation in the Country will vanish.  That the UNP, meaning the so called `loyalists’ and `reformists’ alike have at least two things in common is obvious. Firstly, neither faction thinks that Ranil Wickremesinghe is a suitable person to lead the Country.  Secondly, neither of them has any commitment or plan for the future of the Country.  They both move around the political scene like a rat snake daubed in kerosene oil shouting about defeating or `toppling’ the Government.  What one must remember is that defeating/toppling a Government is not and cannot be an end in itself.  It can only be the stepping stone to another and more important end and that is replacing it with a credible, efficient and committed Government that can save the Country from the disaster that faces it. Neither of these factions of the UNP has evidently even given thought to this fact.  The purported `reformists’ go around suggesting Sajith Premadasa as being a suitable leader for the Country.  However, what are Premadasa’s plans?  How will he pull the Country out of the quagmire in which it finds itself if he is given the reigns of office?  One leafs through the newspapers in vain to find an answer given to this question by the so called `reformists’.  


By the same token, what about the so called `loyalists’?  It is patently evident that even they have not given any thought to this question.  So convinced are they that Wickremesinghe is not a suitable leader for the Country or even for the party that they have now appointed a so called “Leadership Council” with several `Wickremesinghe loyalists’ in it.  
If a Leadership Council is necessary to run the party it is evident that they have no confidence in Wickremesinghe himself leading the party.  It is axiomatic that any group of persons can have only one leader and not several.  What for example would be the fate of the Sri Lankan Cricket Team if it was led not by a single Captain but by a Leadership Council?  


Is the situation any better in the ruling party?  The answer once again is a resounding NO.  With Mahinda Rajapaksa having a steam roller of majority after purchasing many members of the UNP with public funds, his position in domestic politics appears to be unassailable.  

"One would recall how Gen. Sarath Fonseka who was an exemplary leader of the army during the armed conflict with LTTE which is often termed the “war” was so utterly thirsty for power that he sank so low as to ally himself with irreconcilable forces such as the TNA, the SLMC, the UNP and the JVP purely in order to gain that narcotic called “power”.  Things in that regard have not changed"

It is indisputable that Rajapaksa rendered more than yeoman service for the Country by giving it leadership to defeat the LTTE.
However, what is now necessary is not to keep harking back to the past but to resurrect the Country from the depths into which it plunged during those tragic years of armed conflict.  What needs to be done is to restore the situation, to restore the independence of the judiciary, to restore that which has become extinct, namely the feeling of “shame” among politicians and others in high office; that is to rekindle in them the feeling that certain things though possible according to the strict letter of the law is simply “not done.” – These words one does not hear nowadays.  


The tragedy with Rajapaksa is that though he is indisputably one who has given effective leadership to the Country and has led the Country through many a storm and the Country remains relatively peaceful despite the upheavals happening all around us, he thinks and acts like a politician and not like a statesman.  The tragedy of Rajapaksa is that his one ambition appears to be to perpetuate himself, his family and/or his kith and kin and/or loyalists in power for ever more.  It doubtless this narcotic called “power” that drives both the Government and the opposition.  One would recall how Gen. Sarath Fonseka who was an exemplary leader of the army during the armed conflict with LTTE which is often termed the “war” was so utterly thirsty for power that he sank so low as to ally himself with irreconcilable forces such as the TNA, the SLMC, the UNP and the JVP purely in order to gain that narcotic called “power”.  Things in that regard have not changed.
The UNP seeks to topple the Government.  They speak of alliances to topple the Government but do not appear to have any plans beyond that.  Plans for rebuilding the Country appear to be of no importance to them

"If a Leadership Council is necessary to run the party it is evident that they have no confidence in Wickremesinghe himself leading the party.  It is axiomatic that any group of persons can have only one leader and not several.  What for example would be the fate of the Sri Lankan Cricket Team if it was led not by a single Captain but by a Leadership Council?"

What about the Government?  What would happen if Mahinda Rajapaksa suddenly dies or decides to quit politics?  The battle for leadership of the Country within the so far seemingly monolithic UPFA can better be imagined than described.  One need only say that practically everybody in the Cabinet sees himself as a future leader.  All that one can say is that the struggle for leadership within that party that is bound to follow the exit of Rajapaksa will debilitate the Country far, far more than the LTTE or the JVP ever did.


The fact of the matter is that Mahinda Rajapaksa is seen by  most who are engaged in politics or engaged in careers as their source of power or position.   So bad have things become that one aspiring politician, Hirunika Premachandra has actually demeaned herself to the extent of saying that she is the adopted daughter of Rajapaksa !!  It is axiomatic and she would never have said such a thing had he not been President.  This perhaps is symptomatic of what is happening in the Country today.  We have ‘progressed’ or rather gone rapidly down the  slope of unabashed sycophancy from the days of a minister promising to have soup made out of the slippers of the President to a neophyte Politician seeking to represent the People claiming a relationship by adoption to Rajapaksa !!!  No resolution of the UNHRC can harm us nor any amount of aid from China save us from this morass. Only we can save ourselves by infusing into our body politic that quality which seems to be totally absent in politics, and the administration today, namely “independence”.