Keeping the crown, the sceptre and the throne in the Mahinda family
Rajapaksa reveals for the first time his presidential ambitions for son
This week in India, fond father Mahinda Rajapaksa declared for the first time the presidential ambitions he harbours in his heart of hearts for his eldest son Namal to be his natural successor and heir apparent, groomed to be the president of Lanka come 2025.
Speaking to the Indian media, he said on foreign soil what he has kept secret all along in Lanka: that his choice of candidate to run for the presidency is his own son and heir. Alas, the 19th Amendment had raised the age limit for a presidential contender from 30 to 35 thus barring Namal from contesting the 2020 elections, forcing him to click his heels till the 2025 elections come along to throw his year beaten hat to the ring and realise papa’s fond dreams.
In answer to a question raised by Tamil Nadu’s Hindu newspaper: “Will it be a member of your family, or would you consider someone outside it?”
Rajapaksa’s answer: My son Namal Rajapaksa cannot be a presidential candidate since they have now raised the minimum age to 35 years, instead of 30, so he can’t be considered in 2019.”
So who’s going to warm the seat till 2025 till Rajapaksa son and heir finds his bottom cushioned on it, with his father’s blessings?
Rajapaksa’s answer was: “My brother is certainly a contender, but the party and the coalition will have to decide who the people want.”
All know that it’s in Mahinda’s sole hands to name who that contender from the SLPP will be. So why the hesitancy to name his brother Gotabaya and instead pass the buck to the party and coalition which will slavishly follow his command and hold it as the supreme word of the Almighty.
Or is it that, like the Turk who does not keep his brother near the throne, he doesn’t trust his brother to keep the throne warm as merely a Mahinda puppet, a mere regent until the ordained son, the blue- eyed boy, the apple in papa’s fond eyes, comes of age and attains constitutional puberty to bear the Rajapaksa torch as president?
Was that the reason that made him say, when asked by the Hindu, “Who will lead the SLPP into elections in 2019, given that you have completed two terms and according to the 19th Amendment that is the limit?” – “I will lead the SLPP. There is a view that despite the Amendment I can fight elections and then fight it out in court.”
Well we all know, don’t we, what that will mean. The verdict of a kept bench under the thumb of a triumphant Rajapaksa needs no reference to supreme judgment. And needs no second guessing. To the man on the streets it’s a foregone conclusion. The question is: Why not fight the good battle in court first and thus clear the air of all doubts and establish his eligibility to contest instead of waiting for a submissive court trampled beneath his jackboots to rubber stamp his right to rule by his own decree and judgment?
Now to return to the subject of his son, one can understand a father’s concern and the need for him, and only him, to fill the vacancy for the next five years.
After all, who better than Mahinda to keep the presidential seat safe, secure and warm for his eldest prodigal son to plop on it come the year 2025? This was the position that G. L. Peiris quoting nameless, phantom legal sources, proposed and put forward two weeks ago behind the bushes, seconded by his brother-in-law Dr. Nihal Jayawickrama who rushed to answer the family call of a political nature. (See SUNDAY PUNCH comment of August 26, 2018).
That Mahinda should give echo to that absurd view reveals he still entertains the hope he’ll be president again for he can trust none, not even his own flesh and blood, to be just a caretaker president willing, like a teddy bear to meekly hand over the reins to his son Namal to reign after tasting the ambrosia of power.
Mahinda knows, and knows best, more than anyone else, how the tentacles of power binds one, how once tasted it leaves one with the craving for more. He knows it, for that’s what urged him to foist the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and repeal the article that prevented a twice-elected president from contesting again, replacing it with one that enabled him to contest forever in perpetuity.
He can see it happening, even now, just by looking at Maithripala who swore at his coronation three years ago, with all the humbleness of the peasant turned president at his command, that he will serve only one term and no more, saying ‘that’s finito and I will wanna go home’ who now shows all the signs of setting the stage to serve, sorry that’s the wrong word, to imbibe the nectar of another five years of the nation’s presidency when his own 19th Amendments will ban him from asking for a refill.
Power is the most intoxicating spirit, the most addictive drug and absolute power the one that most corrupt the human mind and turns it into a pathological terminal illness of the brain. Most of them who have tasted it twice may indeed need special counseling sessions on a psychiatrist’s couch to rid them of their mental disorder followed by attending ‘powerholics anonymous’ group meetings with similar sufferers to wean them off their debilitating mental sickness for good.
In the northern world, except for a few exceptions like Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini who not only wished to be in power for life but also intended to live forever, this malady is general contained due to the powerful religious influence of democratic traditions, customs and norms. In the South, however, alas, no such hope. With some of its leaders even planning to create family dynasties, long gone out of style, to outlast the 1,000-year Third Reich that the German Fuehrer promised his naïve people to create on the Fatherland based on the foundation of his Nazi warped dreams.
It’s only natural, of course, that every fond father wishes the best for his son, handicapped as the son may be to rise alone without a father’s helping hand. And what an exemplary father Mahinda has been in that regard.
From helping his son with his studies and enabling him to pass his law exams with ease to guiding him to seek the pre- determined political career of his choice the father decided in his ambition to form a royal dynasty, from putting the good word through the old political network to walking the extra mile to see his son catapulted from office boy to chief executive. Nothing wrong with that, of course. That’s what sugar daddys are for.
But where does that leave Mahinda’s brothers, the ambitious Gota and covetous Basil? In the lurch? Sentenced to the wilderness? To leave the field open for Namal to score his try at his presidential rugby post without any tackle from even the home side? Will they, the uncles, the elders, be reduced to mere vassals, subservient to their nephew, the Mahinda son anointed to the presidential post by his father who solely holds the sacred oil?
Interestingly enough, the eldest son of D.M. Rajapaksa, Chamal Rajapaksa, the former Speaker of the House, told the media this week in Embilipitiya, “Hold on, if anyone is talking of contesting the presidential election, don’t rule me out of the running, count me in. What the people want is a Rajapaksa brother and no one else.”
To the question that the Hindu posed for Rajapaksa, “would you consider someone outside it?” he didn’t even bother to answer it. For the presidential post, in his blinkered eyes, lay solely within the Rajapaksa province. First himself, and if that failed, well, grudgingly Gota and perhaps long shot Basil. Merely as caretakers, night watchmen for the Crown Prince to rise to a new dawn and assume the throne and be named as Rajapaksa the II.
No outsiders would be welcome. Trespassers would be shot on sight if they dared to intrude upon the exclusive preserve of the Rajapaksa turf. Their job was to be the hounds to guard the parametres not take over the castle turrets. Beagles, terriers, retrievers who Mahinda can whistle away when he doesn’t want them near for he knows he can always whistle them back when he needs them. But one faithful pooch yapped otherwise.
Kumar Welgama, an ardent Mahinda loyalist, who, surprisingly this week, had the guts to speak against his master’s voice. He said: “Family bandyism has no place in our party, Mahinda Rajapaksa, whilst he was in power, treated his brothers differently and the outside ministers differently, as inferiors. That made the ministers turn against him and though, they professed to love him, secretly worked against him in the 2015 elections . And that’s the reason that led to his downfall. That’s the reason that Sirisena left. Are we now to create another Sirisena by preventing members not of the Rajapaksa fold from trying to aspire to reach the utmost pole? There are many veterans in our party who have a wealth of experience. It’s not right that they should be ignored and the crown should be passed on to a novice, to someone who has a long way to go.”
With Mahinda facing such opposition not only from his elder brother but from senior supporters of his new found party, the SLPP, can his dear wish to place his son on the Pohottuwa altar and make the devout kneel in worship before the upstart’s icon become reality?
The wily Yahapalana government has with the 19th Amendment blocked all access routes to all the three Rajapaksa brother, Mahinda, Gotabaya and Basil. Mahinda’s case: the disqualification bar of having been twice elected as president, which Mahinda removed with the 18th Amendment, has been restored with the enactment of Maithri’s 19th.
The introduction of the proviso that anyone who holds dual citizenship can contest the elections has effectively sentenced Gota and Basil to the knackers yard to graze -- unless they of course pay the sacrifice and renounce it but, since renunciation is not a unilateral matter but a two way street, it is highly doubtful whether the United States Government will tango with either and grant them their still unforwarded request to relieve themselves of their citizenship privilege before the 2020 elections. Son Namal too has been effectively blocked by the 19th Amendment which raised the minimum age limit to run for the presidency from 30 to 35 years of age.
But dreams die hard. Nightmares last longer. And whilst the angels may sing one to a talcum powdered scented sleep, the ghouls may see to it that one’s kept awake all night through bathed in cold sweat.
For Mahinda, though he may live the dream, the nightmare he suffers in sleep is the question of his own brothers who, having emerged from his shadow to strike out a path for themselves, now cast a dreadful shadow on his own ambitions for his son to be the successor to the Rajapaksa legacy. And that must worry him when warned of the Turkish danger of keeping brothers too near the throne. When one would have sufficed to give rise to alarm, imagine his awesome fright to have three next to the crown, the sceptre and throne.
But whatever fantasies that creep between the nightmares to soothe the Rajapaksa sleep, all these ambitious hopes are, of course, in the hands of the people. Though many are condemned as voter buf falos, they still remain supreme, the unacknowledged kingmakers of this island.
Who hold in the line etched palms of their hands to not only foretell but also to dictate the future fate of this nation, possessing as they do the sovereign power to make or break, to install or dispose governments but, alas, to the nation’s sad misfortune, they have been rendered bereft of the grey matter upstairs to discern who the better devil is out of the bally two.
Mahinda knows, and knows best, more than anyone else, how the tentacles of power binds one, how once tasted it leaves one with the craving for more. He knows it, for that’s what urged him to foist the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and repeal the article that prevented a twice-elected president from contesting again, replacing it with one that enabled him to contest forever
From helping his son with his studies and enabling him to pass his law exams, to guiding him to seek the pre-determined political career of his choice, the father decided in his ambition to form a royal dynasty, from putting the good word through the old political network to walking the extra mile to see his son catapulted to chief executive