Mahinda's scuffle with party drunk
It could happen to anyone, even to modern day royalty who choose to mingle with crowds at the risk of losing their cool, and on Tuesday it happened to Lanka's former twice president, Mahinda Rajapaksa at Akuressa.
Arriving at a political rally, he alighted from his car to walk the short distance to the stage where party leaders awaited to accord him a royal welcome. As he made his way through the crowds, a party supporter tried to grab his hand. A scuffle ensued and TV cameras captured the moment when the former president flared back in anger. The TV clip, which has gone viral, shows the former president reacting with his left hand raised before being pushed back and stopped from falling to the ground by his own security.
While all this was taking place, the announcer on the stage was heralding Mahinda's arrival as "our beloved king is coming, our beloved appachchi is coming, our beloved prime minister is coming, our beloved Mahinda Rajapaksa is coming, jayawewa, jayawewa,' totally unaware perhaps that his beloved king and appachchi was at that very moment involved in an unseemly scuffle with a UPFA party drunk in the gallery below.
Explaining the incident, the former president's spokesman stated that the man was a UPFA supporter and had been trying to get close to the former president to shake his hand. The man had been drunk, he said, and the incident was dismissed as the act of a drunkard.
But what cannot be brushed off so easily is the common charge levelled against UPFA that crowds are brought to UPFA meetings with the lure of a packet of rice and a bottle of arrack. Can anyone blame these drunks if they are in high spirits courtesy of UPFA organisers? Does this incident put the finger on the fact that perhaps a great many of the crowds UPFA boasts about maybe thoroughly sloshed right throughout the rallies and can make no head or tail of the seldom so he is forced to gatecrash and drum for his host's last supper before moving on to another act of betrayal.
The Peramuna Rala comes next atop a bedecked elephant. He was specially flown from the States ten years ago when the first perehera was held to get his advice on how to ride the polls pony the way Yankee Doodle did when he stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni. But today the only feathers he sees are not stuck in his cap but those that will feather his party's raven nest and he declares, like a prophet of doom come to warn 'the end is nigh, the end is nigh', how the nation will be engulfed by a manmade disaster of the worst kind, a political tsunami no less where the masses will unfurl their wrath on Lankan shores in tidal waves repeatedly, if his leader is not granted the prime ministership, never mind what the rock edict says.
Below him, his mahout, a Dissawe from Wayambe, shouts 'hear, hear' and brandishes the henduwe and threatens to run amok in the paddock with the cattle prod, the paddock's symbol of authority, if his leader is not appointed as Prime Minister.
The method of operation is clear: Opinions are put forward disguised as genuine legal rulings stating that the President is duty bound by the constitution to make the appointment and that he has no other choice constitutionally. If he stirring speeches those thirsty for power intoxicatedly air on stage?
There is a pithy Sinhala saying 'thamange arrackku thamantama gahai' or 'getting hit by one's own arrack'. Maybe this was another one of those instances where the old adage was spot on.
Furthermore the former president speaking of the incident which appeared to be like a left handed punch attack by him on a UPFA supporter said on Thursday, "A strong party supporter held onto my hand out of love for me. He appeared to be under the influence of liquor. He caught hold of my finger and held onto it strongly. So I pushed him away. What else could I do? He nearly broke my finger. I nearly wept tears from another place also."
For his own personal safety, Mahinda Rajapaksa should keep a careful safe distance from the people he loves so much and who he says loves him so much and remember the wisdom of another Sinhala saying, 'thadha sulang wassatai, thadha seneh dabaratai' or strong winds spell rain: strong love brews trouble. fails to comply with the constitution, the people will be forced to resort to revolt to achieve their just aim. Hammered home long enough by this train of artful drummers in the pageant and the masses may come to wonder whether it is actually so: whether the President actually has the discretion he claims he has or whether he is constitutionally bound to appoint Mahinda as Prime Minister and no one else?
Drummed long enough, this diabolical misrepresentation of the constitution may take hold in the minds of those not versed in constitutional law and far too indifferent or too busy with their own pressing affairs to make a determined effort to seek the actual position themselves. What is happening is the stage is being insidiously set, the people are being subtly conditioned, and the president is being unfairly subjected to undue pressure that it should not surprise anyone if he finally succumbs to it at the end of the day and goes on TV a week later to tell the nation why.
Ah, the horanawa comes into the perehera frame now but where is the flutist. This Lankan Rasputin with the goatee comes swaggering in, elevated on walking stilts to increase his meagre height and flaunt his five star salon pedicured toes, blowing his flute from the depths of his lungs to make the President obey his