The genie’s tale

I heard a pertinent story last week about a Sri Lankan man who met a genie.

The kind genie, who possessed magical powers, told the man that he would grant him one wish.

The man was very grateful at this unexpected stroke of good fortune, so he told the genie “My wish is that I want to live forever”.

The genie looked very embarrassed when he heard the request. “I am very sorry, sir” he replied, “but that is the only wish I am not allowed to grant to a human being”.

The man thought for a few moments and then turned to the genie and said, “In that case, Mr Genie, please grant me this wish: I would like to die the day after our parliament is filled with honest, hardworking, bipartisan men and women who act only in the people’s best interests!”

The genie raised his eyebrows. “You Sri Lankans are so smart and crafty. Clever people with Good Thinking Brains! What I cannot understand is why you don’t use your astute brains when you cast your votes!”

How correct the genie was! We Sri Lankans really are a brainless lot when it comes to voting.

We do not vote for candidates because of the good that they can do for the country – we vote against candidates because of the harm they have done to our country.

In the last two presidential elections, for example, we voted for the new president simply because we were fed up with the old president. We got rid of Mahinda Rajapaksa and installed Maithripala Sirisena in the vain hope that he would undo the corruption and nepotism of the Rajapaksa years – only to find Maithripala appointing his brother Kumarasinghe as chairman of Sri Lanka Telecom and facilitating his other brother, Dudley, to (in his own words) “carve his way through to the elite ranks of Sri Lankan businessmen”. At the next election, fed up with Maithripala and his phoney brand of yahapalanaya we selected Gotabaya Rajapaksa to replace him – and much good did that do us!

We have shown over and over that the person we elect has no proven track record – Maithripala had no concept of governance and Gotabaya had no concept of anything – but these candidates only got our vote because they had not (until that time) indulged in the bad things done by their predecessors.

So now we hear folk saying that they are fed up with both major parties – not only what is left of the blue party and the green party but also the re-branded offshoots of these parties represented by telephones and lotus buds. We now seem to be waiting for a chance to vote in the NPP (in effect the rebranded JVP) not because of what they can offer the country but because they claim to be different from those who have gone before. Anura Kumara’s party members have never indulged in corruption, misgovernance or nepotism – but whether that is due to their strong sense of moral rectitude or simply because they have never had the opportunity to have access to the national coffers is a matter for debate.

Will they, as I pointed out last month, simply

We have shown over and over that the person we elect has no proven track record – Maithripala had no concept of governance and Gotabaya had no concept of anything – but these candidates only got our vote because they had not (until that time) indulged in the bad things done by their predecessors

take steps once elected into office to ensure that the system works, not for the greater good of the public who elected them but for their own personal well-being?

It has been said that most politicians all over the world are selfserving – but most serve themselves with a finesse that is distinctly lacking in Sri Lankan politicos. We have to accept that many politicians help themselves to secret commissions or kickbacks – but they take great care to ensure that the projects for which they received “gratifications” are carried out to perfection and benefit the people. Nobody will care if you buy yourself an apple farm in Australia with the proceeds of your ministerial endeavours if you make sure that the projects you were tasked to put into effect are completed efficiently and on time – and you leave behind a legacy of efficiently functioning massive irrigation schemes and awakened villages.

What people do not like is ministers and presidents taking commissions that amount to 100% of the cost of projects – or approving projects (like a non-functioning convention centre and a port city that is devoid of worthwhile buildings) that are of no benefit whatsoever to us citizens!

The genie’s observation was certainly right on point.