{"id":75120,"date":"2018-02-26T02:52:27","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T09:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=75120"},"modified":"2018-02-26T02:52:27","modified_gmt":"2018-02-26T09:52:27","slug":"where-there-is-no-vision-there-is-no-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/02\/26\/where-there-is-no-vision-there-is-no-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"WHERE THERE IS NO VISION, THERE IS NO HOPE"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

With the Municipal and Local Council elections held on 10 February 2018, introducing a new electoral system, the Lotus Bud (Pohottuwa<\/em>) of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna [SLPP] supported by Mahinda Rajapaksa, blossomed with a sweeping landslide victory, thus serving a sledge hammer blow on the two leaders of the Unity Government, President Maithripala Sirisena, who campaigned vigorously punching forceful political rhetoric and promising to chastise all corrupt politicians (by sending them to ‘Hell’-his own words<\/em>); regrettably everything backfired miserably. The Prime Minister, on the other hand, who went ahead separately with his own party, the UNP, lost its majority too. Many view this outcome as the result of not paying any heed to the public outcry, and particularly by getting Prime Minister’s name tarnished by the Central Bank mega fraud however much he attempted to wriggle out of it.<\/p>\n

The SLPP victories covered the entire map of Sri Lanka, except in a few areas, which made them demand the unprecedented call for the dissolution of Parliament and a General Election immediately, which political pundits claim is not Constitutionally possible until 2020; unless with a 2\/3rd majority in Parliament. The coalition partners maintain that the LG elections result has no relevance, whatsoever, for a general election until the Unity Government completes its full term. This has given rise to many speculations, while the two main players locking horns with each other to form a Government, and to replace Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister. In the meantime, various legal luminaries interpret the Sri Lanka Constitution in many legal forms. The present chaotic situation (for the last 11 days) only goes to show the mentality of our politicians who are only interested and concentrating on a new government, who is going to be the Prime Minister and who gets new ministerial posts in a reshuffle of the Cabinet, but is least bothered in community welfare, for which they have been appointed to.<\/p>\n

Common Presidential candidate<\/strong><\/p>\n

Voters chose Maithripala Sirisena on 8 January 2015, as the President of Sri Lanka focussing on the Rajapaksa regime as being corrupt. They promised in uncertain terms, that once in power, President Sirisena’s prime aim would be to ‘horu allanna’<\/em> (eradicate bribery and corruption). The strategy worked miraculously during the elections time, and helped Maithripala Sirisena to end up getting 6,217,172 million votes against Mahinda Rajapaksa, who managed only 5,768,090.<\/p>\n

The political scenario in Sri Lanka is quite different and alien to other international systems. In other democracies around the world, when politicians become failures in the eyes of the populace, for whatever reasons, people have seen the accused resigning their posts honourably. Contrary to such civilized behaviour, in Sri Lanka, of course, the corrupt, alleged and the guilty get glued to their ranks and positions disgracefully, like chewing gum!<\/p>\n

Ranil Wickremesinghe is quoted as a typical example of a senior politician in Sri Lanka, with over 40 years of experience, and 24 years as the Party Leader of the UNP, and serving as the Prime Minister several times too. However, he fails to win the hearts of the majority of the voters. He has been using all kinds of technicalities in the Constitution to remain in power; in the meanwhile legal luminaries have come out with a variation of assessments on the Constitution, which at last gone to the Supreme Court, to decide finally.<\/p>\n

The new format of the Local Government elections held, on a single day, was purely to elect candidates who are familiar with the village and town levels, with a percentage of female candidates. Instead it categorically proved that the whole election was focussed on testing the popularity of the present Government and not what it was meant to be! Another spectacular behaviour could be sighted as Mahinda Rajapaksa’s clarion call to vote for the SLPP, not being even a member of the SLPP, which some see as a pied piper scenario, as far as the SLPP and SLFP members are concerned, as the deadlock still prevails in removing the Prime Minister and forming their own government.<\/p>\n

Popularity and loss of faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whatever said and done, Mahinda Rajapaksa appears to be the pet politician of the people still; for salvaging the country from a perilous terrorist grip, and creating an atmosphere and a free society where one could walk freely with dignity. The Unity Government boasts about freedom of speech and the eradication of the white van scenario. Critics call the Pohottuwa’s<\/em> land slide victory is inversely proportional to the degree to which voters were horror-struck with the ‘Yahapalanaya<\/em>‘ for not living up to its true meaning, which left the frustrated voter with no choice (either way),thus creating an escape route, which strikingly, worked out to the advantage of the SLPP.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, voters have clearly sent a message to President Maithripala Sirisena that he appears to have lost his marbles over the last three years, and the assertions of ‘punishing the corrupt politicians was all eyewash<\/em>. Many say it is too late, now, for him to get back onto the correct track within the remaining breathing space before 2020, and even if the Unity Government changes its direction, no development could be seen during their term. The present day Sri Lankan voter is intelligent, and politicians cannot hoodwink the public with pathological lies or bogus promises any more, and the voter will not be affected by political grandiloquence alone!<\/p>\n

Patience running out<\/strong><\/p>\n

People waited patiently for three long years to see how Maithripala Sirisena, as President, performs, since 8 January 2015. People did not expect anything else, but mainly to eradicate corruption and bring those dishonest politicians to book, as he repeatedly vouched to do so. People did not go into detail about his pedigree, did not watch how he walked or cared for his cast or creed, or whether he could speak English; neither did they compare him with Mahinda Rajapaksa’s charisma and leadership qualities, or whether he was clean shaven or had a brush-type moustache to show his manhood, but they expected action, only. He promised, to catch ‘horas’ and punish them.<\/p>\n

It is rather unfortunate when 62 per cent of the voters who had implicit faith in him in January 2015, and expected a lot out of his ‘Yahapalanaya<\/em>‘, which he introduced proudly, but hopelessly failed. Alas! After occupying the hot Executive Presidential seat, and being the Head of the SLFP simultaneously, he has managed only to prove himself as the weakest President Sri Lanka ever had, by changing his decisions by stating one thing in the morning and changing it to another in the afternoon, and further in the morning after. The people became disgruntled and disappointed because the President failed even to feel the pulse of the Financial Crimes Investigation Division, which was directly accountable for carrying out investigations into serious financial fraud, misuse of State assets and funds, pertaining to Government revenue. The resignation of the Director General of the Sri Lankan Commission on Bribery and Corruption, Dilrukshi Dias Wickremesinghe, derided him further, following his public outburst against “politicization of the Commission’s working”.<\/em><\/p>\n

Looking at the latest developments, Maithripala Sirisena appears to have completely lost the people’s confidence; the very people who propped him up to the level of Presidency in January 2015. Some might label him as an ungrateful politician, who deceived those who supported him. Yet, Maithripala Sirisena has only two more years up to 2020 to be in office. In the present scenario no one will dare to despise him, because he is still the President of the country, but many conclude that, when he retires and relaxes in his easy chair in Pollonaruwa in 2020, Maithripala Sirisena will have to feel the pain as a politician, after so many years in politics, as to what extent the people have rejected him.<\/p>\n

tilakfernando@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando. With the Municipal and Local Council elections held on 10 February 2018, introducing a new electoral system, the Lotus Bud (Pohottuwa) of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna [SLPP] supported by Mahinda Rajapaksa, blossomed with a sweeping landslide victory, thus serving a sledge hammer blow on the two leaders of the Unity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-drtilak-s-fernando"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75120","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=75120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}