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Do
we have a race? But, it’s not the PM’s down-south doggedness but plain and simple anxiety that seems to have provoked the SLFP (..read President Kumaratunga) to name Rajapakse the party’s presidential candidate. That dull though unpredictable story-book character, the Commissioner of Elections, was said to be gargling his mouth to make the eventual announcement this week that the Presidential Election will be held in November of this year. That put the SLFP in a tailspin. The party did not want to be candidate-less when the election call came; that would have been like losing the race even before it got properly started. So Rajapakse was hurriedly taken out of the closet, his image dusted-up, and he was presented as the candidate who will thrash the UNP’s by now gung-ho Wickremesinghe -- or so the story goes, anyway. But even if the President granted the candidature to Rajapakse, and bit the bullet in having to do so, the fact is that the battle lines now seem to be drawn, and what’s done cannot be undone no matter who is feeling miserable about it. That out of the way now, it seems a curious way to resolve the date of an important Presidential election in the courts of law of the country -- as is now planned. The very idea seems to hold a mirror to the absurd potemkin nature of our times. We resolve an election date in court, after expecting an Elections Commissioner to be the judge in an arm-wrestle between the country’s top political contenders. The result of it all is that we are spawning a breed of young that will have no respect for any institutions in the country, because there are no solid institutions. Going by the joust over the date, even the constitution seems to be like a ball of thread shredded apart and spat out regularly in an unseemly political catfight. Handling
intelligence intelligently? Here was a story that concerned the armed forces, which are not even called a pillar of the state. But, the armed forces are one important actor in affairs of the country, especially for a part of the state that does not even count as one of its ‘pillars’ or structural supports. The President said that journalists are placing the armed forces and its sub-structures at risk. She proceeded to name names, but we will not in turn name those names here. (See Situation Report) But,
her argument was that journalists are laying out the bare bones
of armed forces policy for the enemy to see, which is a dangerous
war game to play. Shorn of all niceties, what can be said is that it’s the state intelligence that had been doing the only good job of preserving the Sri Lankan state. Chandrika Kumaratunga is at least in some quarters said to be now deconstructing that operation part by small part, taking apart that only really solid and successful Sri Lankan defence operation. As said, it’s a sensitive issue -- but if Kumaratunga is ding it for reasons of realizing her own pipe dream of peace, there is a clear and present danger in that line of thinking. We sincerely hope Kumaratunga has her heart in the right place, and will not irresponsibly deconstruct this one last line of resistance in the country’s on-again off-again campaign against rebel aggression. The least that can be said is that the people are watching - - and we should all be watching. The President can for the moment be given the benefit of the doubt, but its doubtful that right thinking people of this country will allow the last bulwark against aggression -- the state’s intelligence arm - - to go down without a fight if indeed it’s being gradually hobbled of its strength. |
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