Family politics and the future presidency

The next generation of males having links with deep-rooted family politics might have a hard time convincing people to vote for them

Politicians here in Sri Lanka must be married and have children if they are to engage in lawmaking. We’ve seen politicians who were bachelors who never did anything worthwhile for themselves or for the country. When our children live in the country we reside in we tend to take calculated decisions for the betterment of the nation. 

When tourists are still showing a great desire to holiday here in Sri Lanka why are local politicians booking their tickets to fly abroad for an overseas holiday this December? That money politicians spend abroad can be the revenue of a hotel owner here in Sri Lanka

Right now people are left wondering whether there would be a tomorrow for them. The queues for kerosene oil, the scramble for whatever gas that’s available and a shortage of whatever essential items describe the pathetic situation the country and its people are in. Just a few years ago people voted for an apolitical individual with the hope that a man without a political background would take stern decisions and steer the country on the path to prosperity. But sadly politicians in the president’s camp are criticising him and questioning some of his thinking; like the decision to dump chemical fertilizer and move to organic fertilizer in such a hurry. Foreign countries are still showing an interest in offering loans to Sri Lanka and investing on projects here. But we cannot expect a president from a foreign country to land here, become the head of state and show us the way. We need to find that leader who would tell the people that there is no substitute for hard work, they must limit wastage and plundering of state funds, love this nation fiercely and get back to the islander’s lifestyle of eating and living the simple traditional way. When tourists are still showing a great desire to holiday here in Sri Lanka why are local politicians booking their tickets to fly abroad for an overseas holiday this December? That money politicians spend abroad can be the revenue of a hotel owner here in Sri Lanka. People are desperate now because they don’t see their next leader. In this backdrop lawmakers like Patali Champika Ranawaka are underscoring the fact that it’s a man with a solid education, sound economic thinking and subject knowledge who can steer this country out of the woods; not a person with a powerful horoscope or someone termed as the next Diyasena. People would still hope of seeing another apolitical individual being elected as president. They would still have hope one more time for a person with no political affiliations or background to be the first citizen of this country and steady Sri Lanka economically. All this is because people have lost faith in traditional and family politics. The talk doing the rounds in the political scene is that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s son, Namal, is still too young to be a presidential candidate as yet. We should have the next presidential elections somewhere around 2024. And whoever who gets elected in 2024 would hold office till about 2030. That would be a good time for Namal to think of contesting for the presidency. But the question is who would be the stopgap lawmaker who would be brought to power during the six years after the next presidential elections? This writer remembers a pakka story related by a renowned Sinhala language guru-sporting a long beard and lengthy hair tied into a bun-who predicts who the next president would be. He does so in his Youtube channel. The teacher relates a hypothetical story of a ‘mudalali’ from the south. The shop owner is old and hires a young shop assistant to oversee his business. All this happens because the owner’s son migrates for higher studies. The young shop assistant works hard and earns the goodwill of the entrepreneur. The business establishment prospers and the old man’s trust in the new employee grows so much that he hands him the keys to the establishment. After some time the shop owner treats the assistant as his own son and even offers him meals from his home. After many years of service the young shop assistant sees a letter one morning at his office desk. Opening it he reads the following message, “My son has arrived from abroad. Hand over the keys of the shop”. There are two morals to this story. One is that ambitious people would use a stopgap employee-who is not hostile or a threat to the family-till the next in line in the family is ready for the job. The other is that if a man from the south gets established in a place there is absolutely no chance of displacing him. The Sinhala guru goes on to suggest in the video that a man who had his education in a leading Colombo 7 school, is married to a university lecturer and who is a close friend of the veteran lawmaker with a mustache- who is compared to King Dutugemunu because he ended the war- might be that stop gap president till the son is ready for the throne. We have to believe that this story might be a reality due to two reasons. One is that Sri Lanka never groomed its next president with the last Executive doing so being J.R Jayewardene. The other is because none of the well-grounded individuals who are highly qualified and are professionals in their chosen professions are interested in entering politics and becoming the president of this country.