Egoistic ‘Dignity’ 75 to cost 200mn!

Drain 10bn on 98.4% who voted Maithri and Gota not democracy 

Elections in Sri Lanka are nothing but standardized tests designed to assess voter intellect. It is a fact that at the last two Presidential elections over 98% of ill-advised electors in the two camps, offered the nation with Executive powers to two irresponsible men who lacked direction and authority, and whose time in office [2015-2022], was rocked by scandals. 

Freud claimed that “the psychological process of leadership occurs because a group of people, the electors have replaced their own narcissistic tendencies with those of the leader, such that their love for the leader is a disguised form of self-love or a substitute for their inability to love themselves.”

  State Minister of Finance Shehan Semasinghe addressing the G-20 Finance Ministers Summit on Thursday told them that we continue to face delays in securing the bailout from the IMF, admitting that the situation is becoming gradually hard for the people of the country; “the current economic crisis is impacting individuals and businesses in the island nation, uncertainty surrounding technical concerns and the delay in the vital approval is taking a heavy toll on the people of Sri Lanka.”

 In the midst of an economic catastrophe, the government is planning to bust off another 200 million on an “Abhimanaya-75” [dignity] and 10 billion on LG polls [to test the IQ of the 98% who blame the 225], while begging poor Bangladesh for a moratorium on the Dollars borrowed.

Long before Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sajith Premadasa, Dulles Alahapperuma and Udaya Gammanpila quoted Dhammapada and Sutra pitaka during the last Budget debate, Presidential aspirant Maithripala Sirisena quoted “Nahi verani” at his famous media briefing at Town Hall on November 21, 2014, announcing his Common candidature. The electors of this nation imprudently and recklessly decide to bring back corrupt leaders and their teams to power alternatively. The irresponsible politicians drag the country to a virtual bankrupt/authoritarian state. The voter encouraged anti-social elements within the so-called parties that including drug traffickers, plunders and ruffians to rule the roost, and then get the treatment that they deserve.
It was Muhammad Iqbal, who said, ‘Nations are born in the hearts of poets; they prosper and die in the hands of politicians.

Maithri won against powerful Rajapaksa, with the help of the entire opposition including Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thero, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the JVP, Muslim Congress and the Field Marshal, plus a few defectors from Rajapaksa camp in 2015

The people who are struggling to make ends meet, to my understanding, are not least bothered about LG polls, let anybody succeed, as the race is among a corrupt SLPP government, and a highly disintegrated leading opposing political party called SJB, a well-organized JVP, but with no mass support and a group of Pohottuwa defectors backed by ‘politically haggard’ spent forces and led by the former President Pallewatte Gamaralalage Yapa Maithripala Sirisena. The pertinent argument that requires the attention of an intelligent electorate is, can some of the dangers the country is facing today be alleviated by holding a Local Government election resulting in an obvious defeat to Rajapaksa loyalists only at the Local Government level?   

Sirisena billed to take leadership of the newly inaugurated, collective of former Rajapaksa loyalists on Wednesday, was ordered by the Supreme Court, even before the ink dried on the paper they signed at Darley Rd, to pay Rs. 100 million as compensation to victims of the 2019 Easter Sunday suicide attack for he had violated the Fundamental Rights of the petitioners.  His negligence in preventing the country from one of worst ever bomb strikes, despite having credible information of imminent attack. In its verdict, the seven-member bench of the Supreme Court that found Maithri guilty had failed to act on the detailed intelligence information shared by India to avert the deadly suicide bombings. It said the intelligence informed about the imminent attack.  Still, the officials failed to show vigilance or perceptiveness.  

The suicide bombers belonging to the local extremist group Thawheed Jamaat with ISIS links carried out a series of devastating blasts on April 21, 2019, killing nearly 270 people, including 11 Indians, and injuring over 480. The attack stirred a political storm as then President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe were blamed for their inability to prevent the attacks despite prior intelligence.  However, Ranil escaped punishment, being privileged under EP’s immunity. A rift between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe was blamed for the failure of establishments to act.  

The court said Sirisena, who was also defence minister and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, had not called regular meetings of the National Security Council and had omitted key personnel from the meetings he held.
 ‘Let us never forget that government is ourselves, and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.’- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Maithri won against powerful Rajapaksa, with the help of the entire opposition including Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thero, Ranil Wickremesinghe, the JVP, Muslim Congress and the Field Marshal, plus a few defectors from Rajapaksa camp in 2015.  Soon he had ditched many of those who supported him in January 2015, Sirisena who vowed to abolish the executive presidency within 100 days of being elected, immediately and illegally appointed UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, [who did not possess the required majority], as PM on January 15, 2015. Then three years later, he violated the Constitution again by dismissing the PM and inviting the man he accused as his bête noire, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who in his own admission was a corrupt individual to take over the Premiership. Sirisena was supported by the members of the new political party, SLPP, SLFP, and the minor political parties representing the left. Wickremesinghe had the Parliamentary Majority whereas Rajapaksa had to still gain it.  Maithri then dissolved parliament unconstitutionally. The Supreme Court found that him has no powers to dissolve Parliament before the expiry of a four-and-a-half-year period from the date of the election. Hence, the dissolution of Parliament was unconstitutional. Sirisena had to re-appoint Wickremesinghe as the PM. 

People like Dayasiri Jayasekara and Wimal Weerawansa who abused him in foul language, and made wild, personal allegations against him during the election campaign have become his favourite blue-eyed boys in the Uttara Sabha Alliance named Freedom People’s Alliance (Nidahas Janatha Sandhanaya) comprising brown-nosers, teacher’s pets, suck-ups of Rajapaksas. He told us that he dreaded for his life during the battle and that had he lost, he would have been ‘six feet under’ and that his family would have been in Welikada. When he enacted the 19th Amendment giving up his own powers, the people called him a statesman because they thought he was a principled man who made a great sacrifice, more like King Yasalalaka Tissa who got a pretender to sit on the throne meant for him: what happened to Yasalalaka Tissa is history.

 “…This dismal failure on the part of former President Sirisena resulted in disastrous consequences for this country. Not only were lives lost and properties destroyed, but interracial tension and interethnic hatred began to raise their ugly heads, causing the very fabric of this nation to be broken,” 

Present a Bill and postpone unproductive LG elections; form an all-party interim rule for ten years. Cancel the 75th Year Ceremony. Plan a ‘Grandeur 85’ with decorum in 2033, not forgetting the presidential commission recommended criminal procedures against Sirisena and others for negligence which needs to be followed up. 

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