{"id":101191,"date":"2020-04-15T15:24:32","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T22:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=101191"},"modified":"2020-04-15T15:24:32","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T22:24:32","slug":"who-is-politicizing-the-covid-19-crisis-for-whose-benefit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/04\/15\/who-is-politicizing-the-covid-19-crisis-for-whose-benefit\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is politicizing the COVID-19 crisis, for whose benefit?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>The Island newspaper of April 10, 2020, in a front page news\nreport (PB \u2018reads Election Act\u2019 to EC chief\u201d), published&nbsp; a letter dated\nApril 06, 2020 addressed to the Chairman of the Election Commission Mahinda\nDeshapriya by Presidential Secretary P.B. Jayasundara, which was in response to\ntwo letters from the former to the latter dated March 31 and April 01, 2020\nunder the title \u2018Parliamentary Election 2020 and Date of Summoning of the New\nParliament\u2019. The president\u2019s secretary expresses surprise \u2018that letters which\nhave been sent for the attention of His Excellency the President by the\nElection Commission, in respect of the official functions of the President of\nRepublic, have been released to the press, prior to the receipt of the letters\nby this office and that the same have also been copied to several others\u2019. He\nalso points out that though the commissioner is obliged to give an alternative\ndate for the election in the gazette notification issued under Section 24(3) in\nthe event it could not be held on the originally specified date of April 25,\n2020, regrettably, he has failed to do so, as the presidential secretary\nremarks. The highest civil administrative further explains that deciding the\ndate of the election is the responsibility of the Election Commission and that\nthe president has no wish to interfere with the duties and obligations of the\nEC. The presidential secretary finally informs the EC chairman that the\nquestion of consulting the Supreme Court in terms of Article 129 of the\nConstitution does not arise. (But EC member Ratnajeevan Hoole points out {as\nreported in Sunday Island\/April 12} that it is still the case that averting a\nconstitutional crisis is in the hands of the president, because only the\npresident could consult the apex court about the matter, in Hoole\u2019s opinion.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An important aspect of the backdrop to the allegedly looming\nconstitutional q impasse may be inferred from the following circumstances: At a\ntime when politicians in general had earned a bad name largely due to the\nirresponsible behaviour of some elected buffoons in the dysfunctional\nparliament that was dissolved on March 02,2020, non-politician Gotabhaya\nRajapaksa, a former Secretary of Defence, and also, of the Urban Development\nAuthority, was elected by the people of Sri Lanka with the largest majority\never (over 1.3 million votes) to the post of executive president. Sri Lankans\nhad been driven to despair by the Yahapalanya (2015-19) that, some of its\ncritics rightly or wrongly felt, rode roughshod over the innocent majority\nSinhalese at the behest of foreign powers with geopolitical axes to grind and\nseparatists and INGOs parasitizing on those global powers unilaterally\ncondemning them (the Sinhalese) as racists, xenophobes, chauvinists, and so on,\nwhereas the truth is that the Sinhalese majority are the victims of racism,\nxenophobia, chauvinism, and other similarly reprehensible attitudes on the part\nof their critics (who should not be identified with the ordinary members of the\nminority communities that they falsely claim are illtreated by the majority\ncommunity). It is suspected that these anti-national elements\ndominate\/manipulate the media, especially the English press. Misinformation\nkeeps the truth buried and out of sight. Because of this,&nbsp; the term\n\u2018international\u2019 has become synonymous with the word \u2018anti-national\u2019 from the\npoint of view of ordinary Sri Lankans. But nationalists always welcome and\nreciprocate the goodwill of other nations, subject to the principle of\nnon-interference in each other\u2019s internal affairs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unfortunately, it has begun to look as if the EC, appointed under\nthe failed Yahapalana&nbsp; regime,were in sympathy with this\nanti-majority\/Sinhalese mentality, and as if it (the EC) were sharing the\nopposition\u2019s fears of parliamentary elections being held in the near future\nbefore the electorate has had enough time to forget about their past misrule.\n(But some of the defeated politicos of the opposition now seemingly favour\nearly elections, apparently believing that the Corona-hit conditions have made the\ngovernment unpopular enough for them to recoup their past electoral losses. As\nfar as Hoole is concerned however, the Covid-19 pandemic is a godsend for him\nto try and get the president to seek supreme court advice in the hope or his\nwishful thinking that its decision would be favourable to the opposition side.)\nThe conduct of two of the three members of the Commission, chairman Mahinda\nDeshapriya and member Ratnajeevan Hoole, is confirming the popular perception\nthat they have a strong anti-majority bias. Hoole, compromised his credibility\nas a member of the EC, in addition to the integrity and independence of that\nhonourable body, when he, among a number of others, challenged the dissolution\nof parliament in November 2018, thereby potentially seeking to prevent the\nholding of elections for a new parliament, for, by doing so, he appeared to be\ntrying to rob the people of their right to vote at a critical juncture that\ndemanded a change of government. In any case, the dissolution of parliament by\nthe previous president was declared unconstitutional and the administration\nformed under Mahinda Rajapaksa came to an end limiting its existence to just 51\ndays, during which, they claimed, they were able to impede the disastrous\ncourse that the Yahapalanaya was set on, thereby preventing it from rushing\nsome greatly harmful legislation through parliament. Before that, Hoole, while\nstill being a member of the EC, egged on TNA\u2019s Sumanthiran (then MP) ruling the\nroost in a parliament emasculated through the premature unraveling of the\nunholy Yahapalana alliance like Hedda\u2019s&nbsp; \u2018the only cock in the yard\u2019 in\nIbsen\u2019s play \u2018Hedda Gabler\u2019, (a description she used to taunt Brack, the\nfriendly but unwelcome stalker, for always using \u2018the back way\u2019 for drawing her\nattention). For his part, chairman of the EC Mahinda Deshapriya was once heard,\nif my memory is not wrong, making a casually enigmatic remark to the effect\nthat in a multiethnic democracy the view of the majority was not the correct\none!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the quietly menacing entry of the impact of the global\nCovid-19 crisis into the island and the growing intensification of activities\non a national scale aimed at containing it, involving the governmental health\nand security departments, Mahinda Deshapriya began repeatedly reminding\/warning\npoliticians, particularly government party politicians, against trying to make\npolitical capital out of those activities. Constitutionally, he has a right to\ndo so in the post-dissolution period pending elections, but the bias he shows\nin this context perceptibly in favour of one party (the opposition side) and to\nthe detriment of the other (government side) is unacceptable, to say the least.\nWhen an election has been announced, politicians in the ruling party naturally\ntend to draw such criticisms from the opposition ranks, whether they are guilty\nof abusing their functional authority for political advantage or not.\nNominations having been accepted, the contestants are now known. Some\nunscrupulous ones among them are likely to promote themselves by participating\nin relief operations aimed at helping people stranded in an indefinite\ncountrywide lockdown situation. However, it is not fair to expect them to focus\non expressly demonstrating their candour in this connection instead of on\nsuccessfully executing the tasks assigned them by their respective leaders in\nthe COVD-19 pandemic related emergency. Their participation is indispensable,\nbut how genuine their commitment to the national endeavour is hard to\ndetermine. They need to be given the benefit of the doubt.&nbsp; In reality,\ntherefore, the EC chairman is vulnerable to the accusation of politicising the\nCovid-19 emergency to the advantage of the opposition and to the disadvantage\nof the governing party. The leader of the National Freedom Front Minister Wimal\nWeerawansa directly addressed Deshapriya on air from a live interview at Derana\nTV with anchor Dilka Samanmalee on April 6 and gave him a comprehensive hard\nhitting answer over this particular issue; Weerawansa demanded that Deshapriya\nfirst stop Hoole politicizing the Corona crisis, which the latter was\nunashamedly still doing. Hoole had told the BBC, quite falsely as usual with\nhim, that under Gotabhaya the country was moving towards a dictatorship.\nWeerawansa pointed out that it was not possible for the government and the\nhealth and security services alone to successfully handle the national Corona\ncontrol effort; they needed the fullest participation of all including the\nopposition parties and alliances. Elections could be held when the conditions\nare safe. The EC had the constitutional authority to fix the date of the\nelection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lanka C News (April 15) reported&nbsp; Ven. Alle Gunawansa, a\nknown supporter of the Gotabhaya-Mahinda government, as having stated that\nthough there appear to be a group that is pushing for an early election, the\nidea should not be entertained until the country is completely safe from the\nCorona affliction. At a time when the president, the tri-services and the\nhealth authorities are successfully handling the epidemic containment job, they\nneed to be allowed to finish it properly. No doubt, this is the government\u2019s\nattitude.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Rohana R. Wasala The Island newspaper of April 10, 2020, in a front page news report (PB \u2018reads Election Act\u2019 to EC chief\u201d), published&nbsp; a letter dated April 06, 2020 addressed to the Chairman of the Election Commission Mahinda Deshapriya by Presidential Secretary P.B. Jayasundara, which was in response to two letters from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}