The struggle for Lanka’s democratic heart

This week, a citizen called into a popular (Sinhala) political programme on national television and asked the Minister being interviewed as to why, one year following the short lived ‘ coup’ in October 2018 installing former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, no legal action has yet been taken against rowdy parliamentarians who smashed t he Speaker’s microphone, poured water on his chair and threw chilli paste into the eyes of policemen guarding the Speaker. In contrast, as the caller pointed out acidly, if an ‘ordinary person’ had engaged in this behaviour, jailtime would have been certain.

Refuting the antiincumbency factor

This is a valid question. True to type, the Minister on the receiving end of this justifiably furious query, stammered and stumbled, first saying that the Rajapaksa- led Joint Opposition had opposed taking action against the culprits who had disgraced the House and then complaining that it is the Attorney General who has yet to revert on the matter. This, in a nutshell, sums up the impotency of the Government which has led to such immense public anger that the anti- incumbency factor is one of the strongest obstacles which the United National Party-led alliance’s candidate, Sajith Premadasa has to overcome. Given the nature of this difficult struggle, he has to do this by the sheer strength of his individual projection as a potential President who will steer a radically different path to a current ‘bankrupt’ administration.

Indeed, it says much for the forces that he is fighting, both in the camp opposed to him and in his own party that, the term ‘ bankrupt’ to define the past four years was used by none other than himself at a recent political rally. His contention that he was merely a Minister in the Government and could act to the best of his ability only in regard to the portfolios entrusted to him, as opposed to having control over the wider reach of the Government, certainly elicits a measure of sympathy. So does the fact that he has dextrously met the racist rage unleashed by Rajapaksa followers using Sinhala Buddhism as a toxic base against the minorities by turning that rhetoric on its head and questioning as to who a true Sinhala Buddhist is.

Premadasa’s call to the electorate that hatred against persons of a different race or creed was anathema to the ‘ Dhamma’ and that the very contrary was taught by the Gautama Buddha is of considerable significance on an election stage where extremist rhetoric reigns. His questioning as to why the Rajapaksa regime, despite its parade of Sinhala Buddhist colours, did very little for the upliftment of marginalised and poor temples throughout the land during its decade of rule, goes to the core of that challenge. In so doing, he has refrained from parroting constitutional cliches which had been the chorus call of the 2015 ‘ yahapalanaya’ bandwagon. This is a profound relief. The betrayal of those promises from the North to the South in still ringing in the ears of voters.

Clearly recognising the ‘Deep State’

Why those promises were betrayed is now clear. During the past few years, Sri Lanka’s ‘ Deep State’ has come to the surface in manifold ways. From Ministers of Justice and Law and Order frustrating justice to state law officers openly admitting to subverting the prosecutorial process and senior criminal investigative officers n ow on t he ‘Pohottuwa’ media platform in a bid to safeguard themselves from punishment for serious crimes, we have a collection of unholy miscreants. The central point is as to how they were allowed to continue in their positions for years without being dealt with. It is not, after all, that these misdeeds were not known.

For example, when the Inspector General of Police ( IGP) was recorded on national television quite early on in the ‘ yahapalanaya’ period, promising then Law and Order Minister Sagala Ratnayake that a Rajapaksa favourite will not be arrested, swift action should have been taken against both the IGP and the Minister. But yet, this did not happen. Instead, the IGP proceeded from one fiasco to another until we now have the spectacle of the head of the police in jail but yet not removed from his office. What is this absurdity? It is not as if an Act of God is called for to remove the IGP. This only requires a simple procedure on the floor of the House. But yet that does not happen.

That dysfunction is not by chance. Instead, this is quite deliberate. The monstrous operation of the ‘Deep State’ is tentacle- like. It is evidenced quite clearly in the report of the Parliamentary Select Committee investigating the Easter Sunday jihadist attacks in Sri Lanka which concluded that there was no evident link between the jihadists and the Islamist State. That is a fact that a grieving father in Katuwapitiya who is still mourning the death of his wife and children could have informed the parliamentarians who sat on that committee, six months ago. The pattern of ignoring local intelligence warnings, the collective dereliction of duty by state intelligence officials all speak to a truth that is too horrific to contemplate. But only the IGP and the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence is called upon to account for that failure? This is the Deep State in defiant operation.

A struggle between the old and the new

So when former Justice Min is terWijey ad as a Rajapakshe says shamelessly that he protected the Presidential contender of the Sri Lanka Podujana Party led coalition, Gotabaya Rajapaksa from prosecution in the Avant Garde floating armoury scandal, he is only unveiling that ‘ Deep State.’ Meanwhile Deputy Solicitor Generals of the Attorney General’ s Department have put themselves into the eye of the controversy with one saying that she can make or break the law, the other saying that he had resisted pressure from Ministers to prosecute Rajapaksa and yet another challenging this by asking as to why proper legal action was not initiated.

What further adds to this sorry situation is that, one by one, indictments filed by Sri Lanka’s Bribery and Corruption Commission ( CIABOC) in major cases of corruption, have been thrown out by court on various grounds, including for lack of due diligence. But the question is as to how this happened in the first place? Was there not a team of prominent lawyers engaging with CIABOC at that point, to ensure the integrity of the prosecutions? In sum, let us not mistake this upcoming Presidential fight as an easy one. Indeed, it is perhaps even more difficult and more perilous than the electoral fight in 2015 between Mahinda Rajapaksa and the collective strength of ‘ yahapalanaya’ under the banner of Rajapaksa’s former party secretary, Maithripala Sirisena. This time, the struggle is for the democratic heart of the country, between a young challenger who promises the future to be different from a scornfully imperfect past and old familiar foes.

We face tense times ahead.