The Island Editorial

MR at 70

Wednesday 18th November 2015

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa turns 70 today. Candles must now be costing him more than the cake as Bob Hope famously said.

Nothing hurts a politician who has savoured power more than being voted out. Mahinda made the mistake of banking on people’s gratitude to win elections without giving a tinker’s cuss about allegations of corruption, nepotism, cronyism, abuse of power, scandals etc. against his government. He thought people would continue to vote for him faithfully because he had provided unwavering political leadership for the country’s successful war on terror. Cocky, he cherished the same delusion as the builders and owners of Titanic, which they considered invincible. He misjudged a political iceberg in his path and took what lay unseen underwater for granted. He sailed on, oblivious to the lurking danger and heedless of warnings only to have the shock of his life on Jan. 08

Mahinda’s rule saw a construction boom in the country and Colombo became the fastest growing city in the world according to a MasterCard study. A healthy economic growth was also maintained. He embarked on ambitious projects such as harbours, airports and expressways. Ironically, Prabhakaran, in spite of his mindless terrorism, extortion, child conscription and political assassinations, is commemorated as a hero; those who sold their souls to him receive mammoth majorities at elections in the North and the East and hartals are being held to secure the release of LTTE detainees. Mahinda, who prosecuted a difficult war which ended terrorism and enabled the people to live without fear has been voted out of power and is being vilified on the basis of a host of allegations!

Mahinda is in the present predicament owing to a string of political miscalculations. What we witnessed last January was a different version of the hare-tortoise race. The hare did not sleep; it ran as fast as its legs could carry it, but in the wrong direction! Mahinda had been busy with his campaign to secure a third term since his spectacular win in 2010. But, he had not carried out a serious political campaign at the grassroots level, as pointed out by veteran leftist D. E. W. Gunasekera, whose warnings he brushed aside. He became impervious to criticism and discounted the possibility of Opposition propaganda ruining his image and did not care to keep some of his confidants like Mervyn on a tight leash and allowed them to remain above the law. (Today, they have ganged up against him!) Mahinda has owned up to his mistakes. He has said ‘bale thiyanakota mole ne, mole thiyanakota bale ne’—when one has power one has no brains and vice versa.

Mahinda’s family was his strength and paradoxically it became his undoing as well. The difference between Einstein (yes, Einstein) and Mahinda, cynics used to say, was that for the former everything was relative and for the latter relatives were everything! It was also said that Mahinda exercised only 30 percent of his executive powers and some of his family members as well as henchmen the balance 70 percent. Many a true word is spoken in jest!

Mahinda, in his wisdom, dismissed complaints of people’s economic woes as Opposition propaganda. Strangely, it did not occur to him that patriotism was no substitute for comestibles at affordable prices and other forms of economic relief. Had he taken action to have the plethora of allegations of corruption against his government probed and to curb that social evil he could have avoided the Jan. 08 pratfall.

Now that the sobering political reality has dawned on him, Mahinda seems to have planned, on mature reflection, a course of action to achieve his political goal. He is apparently biding his time. He is never tired of waiting. The possibility of his making a comeback with a vengeance has had an unsettling effect on the government. There is no Opposition. All parties in Parliament have been reduced to mere appendages of the government. This sorry state of affairs has allowed Mahinda to act as the one-man Opposition and gain lost ground.

The onerous task before Mahinda’s political enemies who toppled him and captured power is to do what they said he had not dona and ensure that what they blamed him for doing is not done under their watch. The present government has slid into the same political rut as the Rajapaksa administration. It does not seem to care to effect a course correction urgently. Its top guns stand accused of corruption, abuse of power, nepotism and cronyism. Siblings of the powers that be have been catapulted to top notches of state institutions and those who promised to practise austerity and share the woes of the public are now living in clover. Some ministers are accusing each other of taking bribes. Supplementary estimates for whopping sums are presented to Parliament, from time to time, to meet the government leaders’ additional expenses!

Mahinda has apparently chosen to maintain a low profile because he does not want to provide his political enemies with a rallying point. If he is to turn the tables on his opponents and make a comeback he will have to clear his name vis-à-vis numerous probes into various allegations against him and, most of all, disown his kith and kin responsible for his downfall however painful such a course of action will be.