{"id":75103,"date":"2018-02-25T13:14:43","date_gmt":"2018-02-25T20:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=75103"},"modified":"2018-02-25T13:14:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-25T20:14:43","slug":"of-that-rib-tickling-curtain-raiser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/02\/25\/of-that-rib-tickling-curtain-raiser\/","title":{"rendered":"Of that rib-tickling curtain raiser"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

We witnessed the first part of the much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle yesterday. State Minister of Foreign Affairs Wasantha Senanayake lost no time in describing it as a comedy. It was a curtain raiser. We will be treated to the farce proper shortly. President Maithripala Sirisena has, with the help of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, shuffled the pack and dealt out jokers to the public. People\u2019s needs are different. They are struggling to keep the wolf from the door. Jokers can\u2019t help dull anyone\u2019s hunger pangs, can they?<\/p>\n

It is not the shuffling of the pack of jokers the people have asked for. The yahapalana leaders seem to think the masses are asses. Else, they wouldn\u2019t have adopted such a harebrained measure in the aftermath of an electoral disaster in a bid to win back public sympathy. Voters\u2019 message, on Feb. 10, was loud and clear. But, the yahapalana worthies pretend that they can\u2019t figure it out. They are only fooling themselves. Unless they make a radical course correction urgently while granting people much-needed economic relief, they are bound to suffer another electoral body blow.<\/p>\n

The Cabinet \u2018reshuffle\u2019 may have solved the problems of some disgruntled, ambitious government politicians thirsting for power but certainly not those of the irate public. While the yahapalana leaders kept on putting off local government polls we argued in this space that they were making the same mistake as a dysentery patient who postponed a trip to the washroom. What they have chosen to do, in their wisdom, after the polls debacle is akin to \u2018using a loincloth to control dysentery\u2019 as a local saying goes.<\/p>\n

Before trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the public with Cabinet changes etc the yahapalana grandees ought to prove that the agreement between the UPFA and the UNP to form a national government is still valid if they are to justify maintaining the present jumbo Cabinet. That pact cannot be considered valid simply because the UPFA and the UNP or even Speaker Karu Jayasuriya et al say so. The method the government has employed to prove the validity of the national government agreement is a classic example of circular reasoning.<\/p>\n

The Speaker cannot arrogate to himself the power to determine the constitutionality or otherwise of bills or other matters placed before Parliament. If he is allowed to do so then the Supreme Court becomes redundant. Good governance consists in, inter alia, maintaining the separation of powers.<\/p>\n

The Speaker is not infallible\u2014far from it. He represents a political party. This is a country where even some judicial officers have failed to remain above partisan politics. It may be recalled that last year the incumbent Speaker insisted that Parliament could go ahead with the ratification of PC polls (amendment) bill because the Attorney General had given his nod for it. The government, true to form, steamrollered it through Parliament and it has become one of the worst laws. It can be bracketed with the 18th Amendment, which the Rajapaksa government earned notoriety for. It contains despicable provisions which didn\u2019t pass muster with the apex court but were smuggled thereinto at the committee stage. The Speaker also endorsed the report of first Delimitation Committee, headed by Jayalath Dissanayake. But, subsequently, the government suspended its implementation, claiming that it was seriously flawed and had it reviewed. There exists a pressing need for the government to make public the UPFA-UNP agreement at issue and seek a judicial opinion thereon through the President to allay serious doubts in the minds of people.<\/p>\n

It is not advisable to let the yahapalana worthies, whose very political survival is dependent on the continuation of the present administration, to decide whether the UPFA-UNP agreement is valid or not. Asking those politicians whether the national government is legal or not, is, according to folk wisdom, like \u2018seeking the help of a clairvoyant to nab a thief who happens to be her own son\u2019.<\/p>\n

The government is like a buffalo blissfully dozing off on a railroad without caring two hoots about the deafening blare of the horn of an oncoming express train in the distance. Chugga, chugga, clackety-clack, chugga, chugga ….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island We witnessed the first part of the much-awaited Cabinet reshuffle yesterday. State Minister of Foreign Affairs Wasantha Senanayake lost no time in describing it as a comedy. It was a curtain raiser. We will be treated to the farce proper shortly. President Maithripala Sirisena has, with the help of Prime Minister Ranil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75103","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=75103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}