5th Column

Blues, Reds talk of power sharing despite past hiccups

My Dear Tilvin and Wee Wee,
I thought of writing to you after hearing of your recent discussions with the Blues and your plans to oust the greens with their help.

Of course, we must applaud these efforts because you are using democratic methods and not trying to grab power with the help of bullets and bombs as you did over thirty years ago and then more recently just over a dozen years ago.

But I still find it ironical that you could sit together and discuss power sharing with the daughter of the lady who ruthlessly crushed your first coup and the wife of the leader who was allegedly killed by you.

But then, if Satellite is happy with that, why should you complain? After all, Satellite is on record saying that she will talk even with the Devil to retain her power so perhaps she thinks she is doing just that, it is difficult though to decide which one of you she was thinking of when she made that remark!

But what the average citizen is asking, dear Tilvin and Wee Wee, is what happened to Satellite's promise to you to abolish the Presidency? Just in case you have forgotten, you Reds withdrew from the Presidential race because the good lady gave a definite date by which she said she would abolish her title.

Of course, that was a good half a dozen years ago and Satellite has broken many promises since. But if you are now trying to strike a deal with her shouldn't you remind her of her 'Kadawuna Poronduwa'? Or else, dear Tilvin and Wee Wee, if I were you I'd be once bitten twice shy to enter into any kind of agreement with her…

Then there are many other questions your average citizen is asking about your deal with the Blues, dear Tilvin and Wee Wee. If we remember correctly, Satellite was a better capitalist than JRJ himself, and privatised services such as telecommunications and gas distribution when the Blues were in charge.

Now, as far as we know, you still preach a socialist doctrine and worship Marx twice a day. How will you compromise this position with the capitalism that Satellite and her team would undoubtedly want?

Now, my dear Tilvin and Wee Wee, we are not suggesting for a moment that your alliance with Satellite is doomed from the beginning. We do after all remember that short lived probationary government you had with the Blues not so long ago where you even succeeded in reducing the number of ministers! But these questions do need some answers and we hope that you can provide them.

But of course, you say the grand plan is to get rid of the Greens. Now, I must warn you that your simple arithmetic of adding up the Blue and Red votes and saying that it is more than the Green votes may not always succeed. In fact there is a significant section of people who will have second thoughts about voting for the Blues if they are linked to you. Think about that, will you?

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS-It has been said before that when the Blues and Reds get together we end up getting marooned. It happened in the seventies, though with a different set of Reds, so, will it happen again my dear Sahodarayas?

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