SUNDAY PUNCH 2

What a shame that the new joint opposition’s candidate for leadership of the new soon to be touted political party Mahinda Rajapaksa could not drop in for a spot of egg hoppers last evening at Paget Road and celebrate Maithripala’s Sirisena’s birthday after the traditional birthday cake with 65 candles on it was cut. Pity. It would have saved him a lot of bother; and kept his national image intact without a dent.

His decision to fly abroad rather than join the president’s party on Saturday and miss out on the SLFP’s convention today merely to avoid facing the music, currently being played to a crescendo, over his brewing plans to split the party asunder, has run into a howl of controversy at home and a storm of protest abroad; and cast him in the light of an international outcast.

The cat and mouse game he had been playing in these last few months of encouraging the formation of a new party, whilst at the same time distancing himself from being the one playing midwife to the unborn, was drawing to a conclusion; and would have climaxed at the SLFP’s convention where he would have had to jump off the fence and categorically state his position. He couldn’t sing hosannas to the party under the headship of Sirisena. Neither could he, on this festival occasion when the rank and file were celebrating sixty years of the SLFP’s existence as a major force in national politics, announce, without a crocodile tear in his eyes, his ruthless intention to draw his dark dagger, thrust it into the party's underbelly; and tear it apart, Kamikaze style.

The obvious option, to escape from this dilemma, was to flee the country. But the reason proffered could not be seen as if he was going jaunting whilst the party was fighting a survival battle to exist united. It wouldn’t have looked good in the public eye to be seen deserting the mother ship after springing a leak and taking the only dinghy aboard to go on a cruise.

Thus it would have been heaven sent to learn that the International Conference for Asian Political Parties was holding its 9th general assembly in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia exactly on the same days he needed to be away from the Lankan heat.

In a statement issued by his private secretary, it was announced that a joint opposition delegation headed by Mahinda Rajapaksa would be visiting Malaysia from September 1 to 4 to attend the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP). It would include MPs Dinesh Gunawardena, Johnston Fernando and Lohan Ratwatte, former parliamentarians A.H.M Azwer, former provincial council minister Upali Kodikara and Mr. Rajapaksa’s private secretary. The statement added: “On the sidelines of the ICAPP meeting, our delegation will meet the Chinese Communist Party delegation. Mr. Rajapaksa will also meet the Malaysian Prime Minister along with the other heads of delegations attending this conference. The delegation of the Joint Opposition is also scheduled to meet other political party representatives in Malaysia, and in other countries in Asia.”

At first glance the agenda looked as if it was the program guide of an official state visit of a Lankan president to Malaysia. Very impressive. Especially, the planned meeting with Malaysia’s Prime Minister. Nice touch. Now none could say, it was just a fun trip.

The former president was going on official business with an entourage to boot, with even on bail Johnston Fernando, who received courts permission to travel to Singapore to accompany his wife who was in need of medical treatment, even leaving his wife’s bedside to be by his leader’s side in Malaysia and to attend the all important conference of Asian parties there with him. Touching.

But it is still a mystery how this band of SLFP rebel members were granted accreditation to attend the 9th general assembly of this organization of political parties as the ‘Joint Opposition Party’, when no such party has, hitherto, been granted recognition in Sri Lanka. Neither can such a name ever be granted recognition since it is a generic name and not a brand name.

Furthermore, the members in the delegation are still officially members of another party. Perhaps this ICAPP, unlike the Lankan Cricket Board which didn’t sell tickets at the Dambulla Stadium gates much to the ire of the areas cricket fans this week, follows a more accommodative policy and sells tickets by the dozen, or invites any Tom, Dick and Harry who arrive at its doors and begs for entry.

But if Rajapaksa fled to escape the Lankan heat, he was in for a typhoon in Malaysia.

On his arrival in Malaysia on Friday, there was trouble on the streets demanding he be declared persona non grata on Malay soil. Indian NGOs and Malaysian politicians stormed the Putra World Trade Centre where Rajapaksa was ensconced to vent their anger over his presence. Whilst crowds shouted, ‘Rajapaksa get lost’, and stomped on his poster and burnt his effigy, the Penang Deputy Chief Minister P. Ramasamy said that the Malaysian government is totally insensitive and uncaring towards the tragic plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka by extending invitation to attend a conference in Kuala Lumpur. Many others condemned his presence.

Undoubtedly this wasn’t the reception Rajapaksa had bargained for when he stepped foot in Malaysia. It was not the flowery garlands he had been wreathed with when he landed in Uganda earlier this year as the guest of Uganda’s despotic leader Museveni to celebrate the dictator’s 30 year rule. And, no doubt, too, Rajapaksa would have been alarmed to find the explosive hatred he still provoked amongst other nationals even after been thrown out of office by the Lankan public; and troubled to realize the embarrassment his presence in Kuala Lumpur would be causing the Malaysian Government.

But this incidence also reveals how far worse it would have been had he won last year’s election and sought to roam the world as president. It reveals to what extent the country would have become isolated, made an international pariah and made more desperately poor. It also reconfirms that Lanka cannot afford to live on a diet of racist slogans and have its power bent politicians offering jingoist fodder as the sole sustenance to its starving population. It also reinforces the need to achieve reconciliation soonest.

But it is a difficult road to trod, an elusive goal to reach: and made no less easy by those who flaunt a Dutugamunu scabbard and draw their rusted swords to flay every attempt made by the President to bring the nation nearer to reconciliation. No magic wand provided by the UN chief Moon or by the UNCHR chief Zeid can conjure instant unity and harmony. What must be understood is that this government is genuinely making the effort.

Thus when the president told the visiting Un Chief Ban Ki-moon this week to grant him more moons, to give him more time, “to move slowly on reconciliation since we have come out of a long conflict”, it is hoped that the UN chief would understand and appreciate the President’s position and the danger inherent in moving too fast and upsetting the majority Sinhala sentiments.

It is also encouraging that the UN Chief is showing greater signs of understanding. As the president told media heads on Thursday, “He was upbeat about the progress achieved by the government in the past 16 months and did not exert pressure on the government to achieve goals on the reconciliation and accountability front.”

In fact in his speech on Friday, Ban Ki-moon asked the Government only to fast track the return home of the displaced and commended the government for its ‘efforts to move forward on a comprehensive transitional justice agenda and on a constitutional reform process.” What a surprise and welcome change of attitude.

As if the Sri Lanka Freedom Party was a family heirloom bequeathed unto him to be worn above his head for life and then to adorn his dynastic heirs in perpetuity, former President of both country and party, Mahinda Rajapaksa claimed last week that his golden SLFP crown had been cruelly snatched by the triumphant Maithripala Sirisena no sooner becoming President of Lanka.

Speaking at a public meeting held in Anamaduwa on Saturday, the now Kurunegala District MP Mahinda Rajapaksa said he did not offer the leadership of the party at any occasion.”Sirisena says I gave it to him,” he said. “I never gave it to him, he took it by force.”

But doesn’t the SLFP constitution clearly state that if the president of Lanka is a SLFP member, then that member, by virtue of his office as the Lankan president will automatically become the president of the SLFP as well?

Of course, it was not the case for President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaranatunge who continued to remain as president of the SLFP when she finished her second term as president of Lanka even after Rajapaksa had become the Lankan President. Then there was no such provision in the party constitution of handing over the reins of the party to the new SLFP member in the office of the presidency of Lanka.

The change was made, if he remembers it, by Mahinda Rajapaksa himself in his successful bid to take the party away from Chandrika’s reach and grasp; and exile her to the political wilderness. Following his victory in the 2005 presidential elections, Rajapaksa brought a resolution at the party convention that year to amend the party constitution with the clause which stipulated that ”any SLFP member who was elected President of the country automatically became Chairman of the SLFP as well.

The day after Maithripala Sirisena, a SLFP member for 47 years and the long standing General Secretary of the party for over 14 years, announced his intention to contest the presidency as the joint opposition candidate on November 20th, he was summarily and arbitrarily sacked from the SLFP by Mahinda Rajapaksa.

But Sirisena vehemently maintained all along that he was still a member of the SLFP and that Rajapaksa’s actions to the contrary had not deprived him of his membership.

Undoubtedly, since no interdiction was made, since no explanations were sought from Sirisena and therefore the supposed sacking lacked the tenets of natural justice, the legality of the dismissal and the effect it would have had on Sirisena’s right to hold continued membership, would have been a matter for the courts to adjudicate. Not for anyone else, be he the president, to pass arbitrary judgment and hold it as settled law of the land.

But the controversial issue never went that far, for Sirisena’s triumph at the elections made the question somewhat academic. After he was sworn in as president, 20 members joined the Sirisena faction. The central committee of the SLFP made null and void Sirisena’s sacking. The status quo was thus restored.

Thus if Mahinda Rajapaksa

There lies the difference between the former president and the present. While Rajapaksa is attracting world hatred and trying to destabilize the nation by pursing his aim to dawn yet again another night of his misrule; Sirisena is slowly working through the obstacles to build holds that the dismissal of Sirisena, without going through the due process of according natural justice, was lawful and had immediate legal effect, his claim – not having been subjected to legal determination by the courts - is based solely on his opinion; and is as valuable as anyone else’s tuppence.

It was his party constitutional right, made possible by the 2005 amendment courtesy of Rajapaksa, which Sirisena was asserting when he requested Rajapaksa to formally relinquish his position as party president in January 2015. Perhaps, with the passage of time., Rajapaksa has forgotten how he had met President Sirisena at the Speaker Chamal Rajapaksa’s official residence on the 15th of January 2015 and had told him he would be handing over the reins of the party to Sirisena and had issued a letter to that effect the following day.

This week, asked by a reporter his reaction to an allegation made in an Australian newspaper that Sirisena had supposedly asked a political donation from an Australian company bidding for a project while he was Mahaweli Minister under the Rajapaksa regime in 2007, Mahinda Rajapaksa said “This is an instance of Dittadhammavediniya karma”

For those unfamiliar with the Buddhist doctrine of karma, it is a karmic act which makes the doer of the act receives its consequences - either good or bad as the case may be depending on the nature of the act – in this life itself.

But as the one who deprived Chandrika the leadership of the party when her two terms as Lankan president came to an end, Mahinda must surely be in a better position than most to fully realize not only in spheres of abstract intellectual thought but physically in the flesh as well, the operation of the karmic law of Dittadhamma.

Especially, when he remembers now the pain of mind he would have then endured when as the first defeated president of Sri Lanka, he was forced to surrender the party presidency to the victor Sirisena, due to an amendment to the party constitution he himself had engineered, at the zenith of his power. The karmic law of retribution works, like God, in mysterious ways.

Or as the Bard would say in more understandable terms to those who haven’t still experienced it or have still not intellectually grasped its import, it is “when the engineer is hoist with his own petard”. No better sport than that, as Chandrika would be the first to exclaim in unrestrained glee. anew the bridges burnt; and cultivate the valued friendships of the world’s nations

None can hold back the dawn: but Lanka must thank providence that her people held back the night falling on the island on January 8th last year. At least, temporarily.