Thursday 23rd January, 2025

Donald Trump is no stranger to controversy, but his nonconsecutive second term is going to be even more controversial than the first one if some of the executive orders he signed immediately after being inaugurated as the 47th US President on Monday are any indication. He rescinded about 78 executive actions of his predecessor, Joe Biden. He ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), causing much concern to the entire world. He levelled some unsubstantiated allegations against the WHO in a bid to justify his decision. One may recall that during his first term, the US withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council, which US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley called ‘a cesspool of political bias’.

President Trump issued another controversial executive order, granting a presidential pardon to about 1,500 Republican supporters serving jail terms for storming Capitol Hill on 06 Jan. 2021 in a bid to disrupt a joint session of the Congress convened to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, where Trump lost to Biden. That blanket pardon came as a surprise even to some of Trump’s close associates. His sweeping approach to the issue is bound to be used by his critics to bolster their claim that the rioters acted at his behest in 2021. After all, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives led by Democrats for ‘incitement of insurrection’, but he was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.

Trump’s controversial pardon for the Capitol Hill rioters came close on the heels of a much-publicised statement by Vice President J. D. Vance that those who had committed violence on 06 Jan., 2021 should not be pardoned. Ironically, during his second presidential election campaign, Trump stressed the need to restore the rule of law, and promised tough action against lawbreakers, but his first day in office saw the hard work done by the FBI, etc., in the Capitol Hill probe, which reportedly became known as the largest-ever criminal investigation in the US, being undone. Trump’s pardon will surely find its way into history books just like the one granted to the Confederate rebels after the conclusion of the Civil War.

The US never misses an opportunity to take the moral high ground and pontificate to the rest of the world on the virtues of democracy, the rule of law, justice, etc. Perhaps, what is more disturbing than Trump’s blanket pardon at issue is the fact that the US people ‘pardoned’ Trump, who mercilessly assailed the integrity of the US electoral process by challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, brought the US into disrepute internationally, allegedly backed a riot that almost scuttled the certification by the Congress of the aforesaid election results, and, above all, was convicted of felony; they re-elected him President, enabling him to do more of what he drew much criticism for doing during his first term. Trump himself has been able to avoid punishment for felony thanks to his re-election. He received an ‘unconditional discharge’ from a New York court a few days before his inauguration.

President Biden granted a presidential pardon to his son, Hunter, who was to face sentencing on federal felony and tax convictions, last month, and went on to issue pre-emptive pardons for three of his siblings and two of their spouses, during the final minutes of his presidential term, claiming that they might be targets of ‘baseless and politically motivated investigations’. Those controversial pardons may have emboldened Trump to adopt a sweeping approach to the Capitol Hill riot issue.

Washington and Colombo are doubtlessly worlds apart, but one sees some striking similarities between the two cities where unfolding political scenarios are concerned. In Washington, a man who was accused of inciting an insurrection, which almost derailed the legislative certification of the outcome of a democratically conducted presidential election, in 2021, is now the US President. In Colombo, a political party, which has admitted to an abortive attempt to engineer a mob invasion of Parliament in 2022, is now in power, having secured the coveted executive presidency and obtained a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Some of the rioters have been elected to Parliament! Others who are facing legal action must be hoping for a blanket pardon.

Wednesday 22nd January, 2025

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) is willing to vacate his official residence if the government makes a written request to that effect, his eldest son, Namal, has said. This has been MR’s response to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s recent statement that the former Presidents would be asked to pay monthly rentals determined by the Government Valuation Department for their official residences or vacate them immediately. He said MR would have to pay about Rs. 4.6 million a month as rent! Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa has said the government will make no such request, but MR should leave that house.

President Dissanayake is of the view that the official residences of all ex-Presidents and their imputed rents will be assessed so that the public will know how much they spend to maintain the former leaders. Similarly, the people have a right to know the total value of the vehicle fleets at the disposal of the President, the Prime Minister and the Ministers, and the imputed rentals for the President’s House, Temple Trees, the parliamentary complex, etc. Why can’t parliament be moved back to its original location by the sea? Most of all, the MPs’ housing scheme at Madiwela must be turned into a university hostel complex, as the NPP promised before last year’s elections.

Meanwhile, all losses politicians and their parties have caused to the state must also be estimated and recovered. Maithripala Sirisena, whom the JVP backed to the hilt, during his successful presidential election campaign in 2015, has said the JVP burnt down about 240 Agrarian Service Centres together with paddy storage facilities in the late 1980s. Besides, the JVP destroyed hundreds of buses, over a dozen trains and countless transformers and other such assets of the Ceylon Electricity Board.

President Dissanayake has made an issue of public funds spent on providing security to the former Presidents. No one in his or her proper senses will demand that the VIP security divisions be downsized; the President and the Prime Minister must be given maximum possible protection, but the public should be informed of how much it costs the state coffers to protect the incumbent government leaders.

The JVP-led NPP government has also pledged to recover Sri Lanka’s stolen assets. That will be a great service to this country, which is desperate for funds. The ill-gotten wealth of former government leaders and their kith and kin may not be in Uganda; it must be in some other countries. The government must redouble its effort to fulfil its promise to trace those illegal assets stashed away overseas and bring them back. A probe must also be launched to trace and recover vast amounts of gold and cash robbed by the JVP from banks, pawning centres, and members of the public during its second uprising.

How much does it cost the public to provide subsidised food and beverages to the MPs? We suggest that the parliament restaurants be privatised. The MPs must not be given official vehicles. If the lawmakers in affluent countries such as Sweden travel in buses and trains to attend the parliament, why can’t their counterparts in a bankrupt country like Sri Lanka do so? In Sweden, only the Prime Minister is given an official car and all others including the Speaker get only bus and train passes from the state. Now that the government has reportedly decided to use the official residences of ministers for tourism-related purposes to boost the economy, the Speaker’s House near the Parliamentary complex should be turned into a boutique hotel.

Most of all, since the government is in a cost-cutting mode, will it reveal whether it will scrap the Provincial Councils (PCs), which are a drain on the state coffers? The JVP went on a killing spree in the late 1980s to torpedo the PC system, albeit in vain. The PCs, which the JVP has publicly condemned as a white elephant, obviously cost the country much more than the former President’s official residences and security contingents, don’t they?

We are also burdened with a bloated public service with a state employee for every 14 citizens. There are about 1.5 million public workers whereas the actual need is for only about half of them. Will the government reduce the burgeoning public service to save state funds?

Tuesday 21st January, 2025

A string of defeats in cooperative society elections during the past few weeks, indicating a sharp decline in the JVP-led NPP’s approval rating, and growing public disillusionment with the incumbent dispensation, has jolted the NPP leaders into making a determined bid to turn things around with the next Local Government (LG) elections slated for April. They are however labouring under the misconception that their pre-election tactics will help boost their popularity as a government. So, instead of carrying out their duties and functions diligently and living up to the people’s expectations, they have chosen to bash their political rivals. They endeared themselves to the public by being magnanimous in victory, but the problem with magnanimity of Sri Lankan politicians is that it falls by the wayside when the worm shows signs of turning.

The JVP/NPP has launched a series of public rallies to shore up its support base ahead of the upcoming LG polls. Interestingly, at these events the government leaders mostly repeat what they said during their presidential and general election campaigns. If they say anything new, it invariably runs counter to their promises. What President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has said about the Trinco oil tank farm is a case in point. Over the weekend, he said Sri Lanka needed about 24 out of the 99 tanks; about 61 tanks would be developed as a joint venture between Sri Lanka and India, and the Indian Oil Company would utilise the others. When the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government proposed to do so, the JVP/NPP condemned it as a total sell-out. During its reign of terror in the late 1980s, the JVP murdered many of those who defied its ban on Indian goods and services; its sparrow units even killed traders who sold ‘Bombay onions’, which the then UNP government had to dub ‘Lanka big onions’ to save lives! Today, the JVP in the NPP’s clothing is sharing the Trinco oil tanks with India! It is heartening that sobering economic reality has had a mellowing effect on the JVP’s hidebound ideological shibboleths which plunged the country into a bloodbath about three and a half decades ago, but shouldn’t the JVP leaders tender an apology to the public for the heinous crimes their party committed in the name of a campaign to defeat what it called Indian expansionism?

President Dissanayake went ballistic at a rally in Katukurunda, Kalutara, on Sunday. Tearing into former Presidents of Sri Lanka, he repeated his campaign rhetoric. Claiming that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was occupying a state-owned house, whose imputed rent was Rs. 4.6 million a month, President Dissanayake said Rajapaksa would be asked to pay that amount as rent or vacate the house and collect the housing allowance (Rs. 30,000) the latter was entitled to. Was it an instance of a subconscious motivation manifesting itself? The government is under pressure to introduce an imputed rental income tax as part of the ongoing IMF programme.

The former Presidents of this country are not without private residences, and therefore it defies comprehension why they should be given state-owned houses. However, the question is why President Dissanayake, who takes on the former Presidents with might and main, has baulked at dealing with the large-scale rice millers and private bus mudalalis, with a firm hand despite their exploitative practices. His efforts to strip the former Presidents of their ‘undue entitlements’ may strike a responsive chord with the public, but such action will not help assuage the people’s resentment at the government, which has failed to fulfil its main election promises, and cannot even make rice freely available at affordable prices.

It will be a big mistake for the government to reduce security provided to the former Presidents, especially those who were instrumental in defeating terrorism. Equally, one may recall that in 2020, while being detained in the Boossa Prison, three notorious criminals, Podi Lassi, Kosgoda Tharaka and Pitigala Keuma, threatened to harm the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary General Kamal Gunaratne, and some senior prison officers. Such is the power of the underworld. The government insists that security provided to the former Presidents has been reduced on the basis of proper threat assessments. But something that President Dissanayake said in Katukurunda on Sunday makes one doubt the veracity of that claim. Declaring that the number of security personnel assigned to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had been reduced to 60, Dissanayake declared that if ‘whingeing’ persisted, those 60 personnel too would be removed. The subtext of his statement is that the controversial decision to reduce security provided to Mahinda Rajapaksa was not devoid of politics, and the government would not hesitate to strip him of security completely if he offends it further.

A government that raises public expectations but fails to live up to them loses its popularity. Popular support cannot be regained by means of rhetoric, threats, warnings, scapegoating or rows with the media. The NPP must understand this if it is to avoid a crippling midterm electoral setback.