Truth about election manifestos, according to Law Professor Peiris
Legal academic turned politician Professor G.L. Peiris, Founder Chairman of the ruling Pohottuwa Party, let the cat out of the bag this week on what politicians really think about the promises in their party manifestos.
Unbidden and unasked, he stepped on to the national podium on January 1st and heralded the New Year with a bizarre declaration that manifestos were not worth the paper they were printed.
Addressing the media at his Nelum Mawatha office in Battaramulla, he said, “Manifestos of political parties were not really meant to be implemented. The public, too, didn’t believe manifestos were to be implemented whoever won national level elections”.
Professor Peiris can only speak for his SLPP party. He has no mandate to speak on behalf of other political party leaders. They may well have a different opinion and consider the manifesto as their sacred covenant with their people; and every promise made therein a sacred pledge honour demands must be religiously discharged. Not a load of crap hashed up, rose water sprayed, glossily packaged to grab enough votes to win an election.
Isn’t that obtaining a benefit by uttering falsehoods? Striking a deal by making false representations? Practising a deceit upon the people, wholesale? Wonder under what category of offences the law professor Peiris would place these criminal activities in the next edition -- if there is a next --- of his legal tome ‘Offence under the Penal Code of Sri Lanka’.
Peiris may not realise it but wonder whether Mahinda Rajapaksa feels insulted to be told that the Mahinda Chinthanaya does not contain his genuine thoughts? Or that the present President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is cheesed off when Prof. Peiris announces in public that implementation of his manifesto promises is not the order of the day?
Neither can Prof. Peiris presume to speak for the people. He may view them in the privacy of his own attic as suckers born every minute, voter buffalos to be fed the poonac of promises blithely believing that promises in election manifestos are meant to be kept or, worse, treated like village idiots who think that election manifesto promises are false anyway but will still go and vote for the candidate who utters them because it is fun to do so.
Professor Peiris also said that he has had over 20 years of experience in politics and as such he could say that Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s style of governance had received a tremendous public response which the country hadn’t experienced before.
Then he comes to the nitty-gritty. He says: ‘A simple majority will not be sufficient at the parliamentary poll this year. A two-third majority is required to ensure the proper implementation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s manifesto over the coming years. We have won the 2019 polls comfortably. Now our primary objective must be to win a two-third majority in Parliament.’
History repeats itself. The most recent example being when Mahinda Rajapaksa brought in the 18th Amendment increasing not only his presidential powers but also his tenure of office.
Insatiability is a law of man’s nature. As with wanting more food, power demands the possessor to crave for more.
There is another law of the nature of power that one must studiously guard against. It is contained in the famous 1887 dictum of Lord Acton: ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’