A new Political Culture……

It is interesting to investigate what this New Political Culture the Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe  keeps talking about..  From what one has observed so far it is a dictatorship of the President , a police state of the lowest sort with an extended  dictatorship of the Prime Minister within a frame work of  a damaged democracy .  An experiment perhaps of a new political culture  still in a very infantile state and lets hope it will not look to Videla’s Argentine, Salazar’s Portugal or Pinochet’s Chile.

The change of political culture began in January, 2015, with the appointment of Ranil Wickramasinghe unconstitutionally,  as there was already a Prime Minister and a Cabinet.  After the swearing in of the PM in January,2015, he immediately transferred the democratic Republic of Sri Lanka into a police state with a special police force taking orders from the Prime Minister himself to catch thieves,  to make real their hallucinations of thieves of the previous  government in every project, every profit making Companies, and even in every hotel in Dubai, and banks in Seychelles.   

The Foreign Minister rolled his big eyes trying to get all foreign  experts to get the stolen loot hidden in various places by the former President, having accused him of having stolen  an enormous sum of money  equal to many times the  income of the Government of Sri Lanka. The new political culture is not a service for the people , but revenge against the former President Mahinda Rajapakse. All hands to the fore to catch thieves.

There was also an evident don’t care attitude, appointing as Finance Minister against whom a case for money laundering was pending, and strangely the presentation of the Budget was to be on the very day he had to appear in court !!

Weeks later the most scandalous  bond issue in the history of the Sri Lanka Banking System took place , and in keeping with the “new political culture” all that was hushed up and the  falling “dirt” swept under the state carpet.

There was again a display of the comedy of reappointing an impeached Chief Justice, making her retire and appointing another kicking out unceremoniously the Chief Justice in place. That is part of the new political culture a unique system in the world.

The new rulers chucked out our greatest friends China and Russia who defended us in the Security Council against USA and West, and have welcomed  our enemies USA and the West who presented resolutions after resolutions in the UNHRC in Geneva preparing to take our armed forces to be taken before a tribunal accused for war crime, and India that seconded the USA Resolutions as Sri Lanka’s new friends, to take over the countries development from China.

Ranil Wickramasinghe’s UNP Ministers each had to catch at least one thief of the previous regime. Even Company Directors  who held office during the previous  government were not spared. They   accused various people and the FCID of the Prime Minister  took  them for questioning and they never came back , as they were immediately arrested and put in remand. There was the JVP marching proudly with files in hand to be  handed over to the Bribery Commission. JVP was a part of  the new political culture of Ranil Wickramasinghe.

Another facet of  the new political culture was seen after the dissolution of the Parliament.  Maithripala Sirisena actively  contributing to shape the new political culture, proposed by his super intelligent  Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe. But Maithripala Sirisena’s behaviour  was some thing  beyond the recitation of the  daily Yahapalanaya Manthra, ordinary democracy as we know, or  even outside the corrupt regime they had vouched to replace. 

There is no democratic country in the world where a President elected by the people does what Maithripala did from the day he was sworn in as the Presidenof Sri Lanka.

The democratic norm is that a President elected by the people belongs to all the people without discrimination against the political parties they belong to , the religion they profess or the language they speak.  But in the new political culture being shaped by the present Yahapalanaya government of Ranil Wickramasinghe under the Supervision of Maithripala Sirisena all those accepted  political and moral norms  have been ripped away. It is a new political culture.

The new political culture apart, it is a government set up to vilify the previous government,  and take as much revenge as possible from  the deposed President Mahinda Rajapakse his family, friends and those connected distantly  or those who pay respect to him for the life they owe to him,  who eliminated terrorism.        

Maithripala Sirisena the President walked the length and  width of the country, saying to the people that if he had lost the election he and his family would have been six feet under ground. That was a most ridiculous, vicious, and unintelligent thing to have  been said by a man who occupies the most respected position of the country.  Stabbing a man’s back, to gain power is another thing , but to accuse him for what he is incapable of doing is base, low, distasteful  and foetid.

The attempt was of course to bring disrepute and make unpopular Mahinda Rajapakse, making people believe that he is a criminal not worthy of trust. Coming from a man who had known Mahinda Rajapakse for more than 47, years he may have thought that people would  believe that the Batalanda  torturers are angels  of sort under the new political culture, compared to Mahinda Rajapakse.

Fortunately the people –the Sinhala Buddhists would say that Mahinda Rajapakse is a man who will not harm even an insect let along burying people six feet under ground. The other woman Chandrika who is not worthy of being called a one time President of Sri Lanka speaks as if she is under the influence of liquor.  No wise person would go abroad and condemned a Presidents  who had been elected by the people of Sri Lanka  as a killer of Civilians who ran a police state. 

Chandrika was incapable of stopping the terrorists even after she offered Prabhakaran north of Sri Lanka to be ruled by him for ten years, and therefore she is responsible to the very “hilt” for all those deaths of terrorists, soldiers and civilians  from 19 August 1994 to 19 May, 2009. She cannot escape from that blame by putting it on Mahinda Rajapakse who saved Sri Lanka from terrorism.

Mahinda Rajapakse is unique. He is a “man for all seasons,” how ever much the authors of the New Political Culture, try to portray him differently denigrating him, without thinking for an instance that, none of them are able to hold a candle to former President Mahinda Rajapakse.

People of Sri Lanka refuse to listen to Chandrika , and no one will trust her in Sri Lanka except Sirisena-Ranil duo. Therefore she is gleeful she has a foreign audience who knows nothing about her or her doings as the President of Sri Lanka, and may have not even read the book “Queen of Thieves” by Victor Ivan. She is unfortunately a part of Ranil Wickramasinghe’s new political culture.

This Yahapalanaya Government is of course unlike any other government of the world, and what it is going to be with its sworn new political culture  is any ones guess.  Of what we have experienced  since 8^th January, 2015, it is not encouraging.  It became worse when the Parliamentary elections were to be held on the 17 August,2015.

At that election the former President was contesting to become the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. It was an ordinary Parliamentary election.  The difference was that the former  President was contesting as an ordinary citizen but sponsored by some political parties  to make him the Prime Minister if the UPFA wins with a majority number of seats.  Mahinda Rajapakse is very popular despite his defeat at the Presidential election of the 8^th January,2015, and all the “ who done it” stuff with which the yahapalanaya clique was trying to hoodwink the people.

Maithripala Sirisena the President was afraid that Mahinda would win and claim to be the Prime Minister. ( there was a question of an inferiority complex).Hence, under instruction from  Ranil and Chandrika or on his own,  he descended from his Constitutional and Democratic call to be independent and impartial in Parliamentary elections,  to make public announcement that he would not name  Mahinda Rajapakse the Prime Minister even if he were to win the election. Thereafter he started an election campaign of his own against Mahinda Rajapakse.

He announced that there are number of persons in the SLFP who deserve  to be named as Prime Minister and therefore he will not name Mahinda Rajapakse the Prime Minister even  if he wins the election.  

These were all happening just a week or two before the election.  These were irregularities under the election law. But the Elections Commissioner had not proscribed the President’s actions. Then  the President sent an open letter of several pages to the former President Mahinda Rajapakse making lot of accusations and reiterating that he would not be made the Prime Minister as there are others suitable to be considered for the  office of Prime Minister.

Mahinda Rajapakse sent a short reply saying that when he lost the Presidential election he bowed to the wishes of the people and left peacefully; and that it is up to the President to bow to the wish of the people if he were to be  elected with a majority number of seats for the UPFA.

Then the President Sirisena just a day or two before the election sacked the General Secretaries of both SLFP and the UPFA and  replaced them with two of his henchmen.

These are all the part of the new political culture.  There was absolutely  no rhyme or reason for these show of vengeance against one man, who allowed people to live peacefully and breath freedom in a country without terrorism.

The result was the failure of the Party that sponsored the former President as a Prime Ministerial candidate failed to get the required number of seats.

But now the Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe who promises a new political culture and new country  in 60 months has taken over  from the President Sirisena to carry on the campaign of vengeance against  the former President Mahinda Rajapakse.  Corruption charges against the former President, his family and those connected to him closely or distantly continue with a promise to make the Prime Ministers police force FCID a permanent and a legal feature.

The Prime Minister has become a sort of a Dictator, rising to an Order in the Parliament to stop a Parliamentarian making his maiden speech from speaking about arms and armaments  in the Parliament.  Of course that can be understood , as when Ranil Wickramasinghe was the Prime Minister under Chandrika Bandar   anaike did not even present the CFA to the Parliament, probably because he did not want to speak about terrorism and arms and ammunitions in the House.

Ranil Wickramasinghe did not stop at that he also refused to recognise MPs Gamanpila and Weerawansa as leaders of political parties and denied them the priviledges that follow such recognition and even denied them the front seats allocated to them in the Parliament.

That is the New Political Culture that is being set up in Sri Lanka and it would be interesting to know what more is to follow.