Good riddance of bad rubbish
Ministers Wimal and Gammanpila get the presidential boot and leave not as martyrs but as turncoats
While the sacking of Wimal and Gamman from the cabinet closes the curtain on their political burlesque, it does not, however, end the national crisis but portends more troubles ahead for the Government
Finally on Thursday evening, the President reached the end of his long tether and sacked the two main sprites of the unholy trinity existing in his cabinet, sparing only the ghost.
The presidential act would have only been surprising if it had not been taken. It was long overdue. For far too long Industries Minister Wimal and his stand- in side kick Energy Minister Gamman, each with two faces and both double tongued, had been allowed free reign to criticise cabinet decisions -- even take the Government to court -in flagrant breach of cabinet responsibility.
By being the conniving participant and the outraged critic simultaneously, they had fooled both the Government and the people with their sham double roles for far too long. It was payback time.
It had not augured well for the president, who had swept to power promising to instill discipline into the masses, to have long dithered instilling discipline into his own cabinet. But no matter what outlandish thing Wimal and Gamman did -- along with Water Supply Minister Vasudeva, the octogenarian third member of the rebel trinity -- to promote their own ratings at the cost of the government’s weal and woe, the executive rod had been spared.
But for months on end, both Wimal and Gamman have shown nothing but contempt for this convention; and have held it as their prerogative to flout it whenever they chose, to score brownie points with the people by seeming to attack unpopular government decisions, only to crawl back into the cabinet and approve the decision or raise their hands in a show of ayes to a draconian Bill in Parliament which they had decried in public the day before.
The axe, which had swiftly fallen on lesser fry like the non-cabinet State Minister Susil Premajayantha in January for merely speaking against government policy to a journalist, had been held suspended over these two ministers, but, alas, when it did fall the damage had already been done. The two had lifted the veil of cabinet secrecy to reveal dissent was rife.
The only saving grace for the Government was that the two ministers had been denied from walking out of their own accord as martyrs but as two turncoats who had clung onto their positions and perks and privileges unto the last, and would have
clung onto unto the end, if not given the presidential boot and thrown out to the cold.
The event that led to their final downfall was the planned meeting to be held on Wednesday where 30 Government rebels from 11 parties in the Government coalition standing on the same platform and jointly airing their criticism of the Government. The power cuts, the dollar and fuel crises with people fuming on the roads provided fertile ground to place on record they identified with the people.
They had to do something, something grand to show the people they were not totally blind to their sufferings. Something to show that their acquired taste and greed for the perks and privileges had not made them immune to the people’s woe. That their bleeding hearts, though out of step with the nation’s pulse, bled with them.
And yet, it had to be something that did not sound a discordant note to the Government choir, now singing flat, but something masquerading as a seminar of a concerned think-tank within the Government, something that will not upset the apple cart for them and deny them the fruits of office.
In fact, the entire show had been carefully stage-managed to ensure they did not outstep the line. Take the meeting slogan proudly displayed on its banner: ‘Entire nation is on the right road’. This was the cover under which they intended to stage their melodramatic farce, ostensibly in the people’s name.
So on Wednesday, an impotent force of 30 Government rebels took to the public stage to utter their plaintive bleats against the Government they represent, to beat their breast and swear they will stand by the people, in a hollow bid to cleanse the stigma of being accomplices to the imminent death of a nation.
When not even a public flagellation could atone their compounded sins, Weerawansa thought a verbal assault on the Finance Minister would do the trick while Gammanpila believed gentle diatribes against the Government’s visual dysfunction would suffice to launder him.
At the event, Wimal drew his cudgel against the absent Finance Minister Basil’s family sword. In full oratorical flow, he declared: “You cannot solve every issue with an egoistic attitude. Sometimes, you need to seek expert advice, in unprecedented situations.’’ He even called Basil ‘stupid’.
It turned out that the sum of Wimal’s speech amounted to nothing more than to hold Basil as the sole architect of the nation’s collapse; and to suggest, if the offending article was removed, all will be well; and the nation, even without petrol, without diesel, without power, without gas, without dollars and a whole host of ‘withouts’ but provided it was without Basil, can happily saunter on the right road it had embarked under this Government.
Even when the 20th Amendment was presented to Parliament in October 2020, Wimal’s show of public opposition to the bill rested not on its draconian clauses, not on it turning vital independent institutions to merely Presidential rubber stamps, but focused solely on it repealing the dual nationality bar, which if repealed would open the door for American dual citizen Basil Rajapaksa to enter Parliament. But the repeal stayed. For all Wimal’s opposition -- done of course in the name of the people -- the nation found him raising his hand and, without a blush, supporting the enactment.
It was simply a re-enactment of Wimal grinding his private axe with Basil that was played out on Wednesday, again in the name of the public. If not for Basil, the times were swell for him, never mind the public suffering on his right road.
If Wimal was the bark, then the ever groveling Gammanpila obligingly provided the wagging tail. His criticism of the Government was that ‘’the country is facing the consequences of the Government being blind in identifying and implementing its priorities.
He said: “On Wednesday, the Treasury Secretary announced that he was preparing to issue a Gazette which would stop the import of apples and grapes and other non-essentials to the country. It’s too late, but we can be happy as it is better late than never.”
Perhaps, he could be happy as he was on Wednesday night still savouring his plums of office but certainly the people can find no grape of cheer to be told that banning common fruits of other lands should make us all happy and applaud the government for its better late than never decision.
On the contrary, in the surrounding gloom the people can find no crumb of comfort but walk around with the symbolic sign found at petrol stations hung around their necks, ‘sapa natha.’
The President has shuffled his cabinet pack only to find the same old knaves turning up. The changing of the guards, with the same old faces, serves only to deepen the gloom.
Only the appointment of Pavithra to the hot seat of another crisis ridden ministry, the Ministry of Power, may glisten with the faint prospect that the nation may shift from fuel dependent power to total hydro power, with the revival of the familiar spectacle of Pavithra, striding atop the Victoria dam, throwing clay pots of enchanted water to beg the weather gods for more.
While the sacking of Wimal and Gamman from the cabinet closes the curtain on their political burlesque, it does not, however, end the national crisis but portends more troubles ahead for the government. Up to Thursday, their mouths had been sewn up, their silence gained by the concept of collective cabinet responsibility; and their avaricious daggers, used only to carve out slices of the national cake, had remained safely sheathed in cowardice.
But today they have been unleashed, let loose on the public street to stalk the government with muzzles off and knives out.