Is Ranil doing a dance of sorcery?

It was interesting to read The Island editorial today (13); it says Ranil Wickremesinghe should consider having ‘Houdini’ as his middle name, given his adeptness at political escapology. He certainly has much more of an escapology than most of our politicians. But how good is the Houdini style for our democracy?

Is what we see today the reality of Houdini escapism, or the actuality of Gnanakka sorcery or wizardry? President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, whose government ensured Gnanakka’s safety with a huge Police force guard to her home and centre of witchery at Anuradhapura, would certainly have sought her wizardry to meet the challenge of the Galle Face Aragalaya and emerging issues in the parliamentary process – and Ranil was the answer.Let’s be honest. The selection of Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka at this time is a sheer mockery of the democratic process, which has many shortcomings in this country. He led the UNP led by him to a humiliating defeat at the last general election, which also saw him lose his Colombo South seat, which he had won with a huge majority at the previous election. This result showed that he was certainly not a representative of the people. He did creep into the Parliament many months after that huge electoral failure through the National List, which too was organised in a crooked manner during a previous UNP government.

Although there is much criticism of the parliamentary process since Independence was gained in 1948, in the early decades of independent government we did have good, unelected, special list members of Parliament. It did decline in the years that followed, and was made worse later in the Sirimavo and then JRJ eras of governance.Let’s not forget that it is this same Ranil W, who for the first time in the parliamentary process, took the Central Bank under the functions of the Prime Minister, himself, and away from the Finance Minister, after the 2015 General Election. From then began that huge crooked activity involving Central Bank funds as well as the EPF and ETF, and many names and families involved warped and contorted activities using public funds.RW is certainly a political friend of the Rajapaksas. His role as PM in the Yahapalana government, thwarted attempts to bring many of the Rajapaksas and their allies to justice. Why was no action taken to bring the killers of journalist Lasantha Wickrematunga and rugby player Wasim Thajudeen to justice, after the special post-mortem examinations under Yahapalana revealed how they had been actually killed, and not as initially said during the Mahinda Rajapaksa government?

Many Rajapaksas were questioned by the Police on various acts of injustice during Mahinda-Gotabaya governance. They were held in remand custody, but no cases were seriously pursued, and the mockery of justice under the present Rajapaksa governance has seen almost all of their cases being dropped or the procedure of justice twisted to serve them. All of this is a show of the powerful influence that RW had on the conduct of the legal process in the Yahapalana years.The Yahapalana government which came to office was in fact one major path for escape from justice for Rajapaksas and their allies, through a non-justice policy of both President Sirisena and PM Ranil W.

Gotabaya must be fully aware of the help the Rajapaksas received from RW to escape from justice under a government elected to bring lawbreakers of the Rajapaksa era to book. His choice of RW – with a five-time prime ministerial record, to the same office when governance is in a state of chaos, is a song of Self Benefit, amidst a rising cry against the Rajapaksas.RW may get a simple majority in what is a largely misdirected parliament, and from MPs of a government who have been part of bad governance, and many aspects of corruption that has prevailed in the last two plus years. The call of the current Aragalaya at Galle Face and near Temple Trees is for a major shift to good governance, moving away from the several decades of crooked and corrupt governance, where RW had his five-term record as PM. Whatever success he may show in the days and weeks ahead, will certainly be a continuance of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa Governance with the cabbalistic play of Gnanakka.It is time the people began to move away from this belief in the supernatural and occult in matters of governance, and settle down to the genuine process of democracy, which brings in Good Governance!

Let Ranil do his dance with secret chants of a Gnanakka or any other related magical source, while swinging to the Gotabaya beat. He can be glad of his world record as a six-time Prime Minister. But this country will be looking for much better people and certainly better leaders to take us away from the tragedy of today. That is the real Aragalaya before us, that Gotabhaya, Gnanakka or Ranil will not bring to an end.