‘yahapalanaya’

Mahendran has vigorously refuted charges against him, utilizing an order of the Supreme Court in which leave to proceed in a petition challenging his functioning was refused. However, no substantive hearing of the petition on its merits took place. This indicates the dangers of filing hasty and (legally) ill considered applications in court given the damage that takes place thereafter as a result of strategic propaganda. In this context, President Sirisena’s stand in the forthcoming reappointment of the Central Bank Governor will no doubt, be crucial. But the Governorship of the CBSL is by no means the only chequered iron in the ‘yahapalanaya’ fire. Last year, this administration’s Minister of Justice thought fit to boast that he had ‘prevented’ a frontline Rajapaksa from being arrested on charges of corruption. Now we hear of instructions emanating from the Presidential Secretariat regarding a ‘go-slow’ of the arrest of public officials who had been complicit in corrupt deals of the previous regime. What nonsense is this?

Shadow boxing with ‘

Meanwhile piling insult on injury, the Government announced an outrageously massive supplementary estimate for ministerial luxury cars this week even as the displaced in Aranayake, Kosgama and the floods camped out in dirt and mud.

The Prime Minister’s reassurance that this would be ‘temporarily’ held back till the displaced are settled did nothing to alleviate this blinding sense of injustice. What is needed is a permanent withholding until Sri Lanka’s economic woes are dealt with. This is what is meant by shadow boxing with ‘yahapalanaya.’

The sooner we recognize this, the better if a challenge is to be mounted to the failures of democratic governance that increase day by day.