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The news, of course, should have come earlier when it really may have mattered. But destiny unfolds, the tryst is kept, and the rendezvous made, not at a time or place of mortal choosing but at a moment decreed by Fates.

But when news came, though belated, of the UNP and SJB transcending their leaders’ ego wars, and uniting to battle for Colombo’s mayorship, it was welcomed by supporters of both parties as one ‘better late than never’.

VRAI; JVP nominee

In the wake of a huge JVP wave scheduled to make landfall on September 21 last year, party supporters on both sides had urged the two leaders to unite and erect a formidable wave breaker to prevent the oncoming deluge. But in that hour of arrogance, when suspicions ruled their better judgment, and bloated egos blinded them to ground realities, they held it infra dig to tie the nuptial knot or even live in sin.

With power at the presidential and parliamentary levels residing in JVP hands, the JVP desperately sought to complete the hattrick at the Palath Sabha elections.  From Sabha to Sabha, their leaders confidently bragged they would win the whole lot.

They would take all the 339 Sabhas in one clean sweep. As an added incentive, they advised, they warned, they threatened that, if any of the opposition parties won by any chance a single Palath Sabha, then woe betide that Sabha for it would not receive a single cent from Government coffers to develop the area. The President declared, ‘the opposition parties are all rogues, dishonest and corrupt. I cannot give public money to the corrupt. But for JVP sabhas, I will give without batting an eyelid.’

Despite the political rhetoric, despite the confident bluster and brag, the final election results revealed that the tidal wave with 6.8 million voters aboard that broke on JVP shores six months ago, had receded and taken 2.3 million voters in its ebb. This dramatic downfall in the JVP’s popularity within so short a time, should have alerted its leaders that their ascendant star had fast begun to wane.

But it did not alert, nor did it shatter the illusion which they depicted to the public that they are the chosen seed to rule this country, no matter who else won. While party secretary Tilvin Silva began reading the narrative, that the party which singlehandedly wins the most number of seats, even if it does not get 51 percent of the votes cast, wins the council, President Anura Kumara thundered a warning to the Opposition, ‘not to steal the mandate given by the people to the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’, at last month’s local elections.

But this was no presidential election, where constitutional rules dictate that a candidate who fails to win 51 percent can still become, through an artificial process of elimination, the Executive President of Sri Lanka. It is through this mechanism that JVP-NPP candidate Anura Kumara who received only 42 percent while the combined vote of SJB’s Sajith and UNP’s Ranil amounted to 51 percent, sits on the presidential seat as Lanka’s first President who failed to win a majority.

Constitutional laws that govern presidential elections, do not similarly apply to any parliamentary and palath sabha polls, where the game of thrones played here is based on one rule alone: Those who can command the most number of seats, wins control.

RIZWI: SJB-UNP nominee

With the final scorecard reading only 115 outright wins for the JVP out of 339 palath sabhas, 37 to the ITAK, with 14 to the SJB, and with 5 to the SLMC, a single palath sabha to an independent group, the rest were up for grabs.

While the battle for these sabhas still rages in the grassroots, the battle fought hardest and waged fiercest as if lives were at stake, undoubtedly is to win the crown and sceptre of Colombo’s Mayoralty. Here is the field of the crucial battle, the volatile ground where the deciding duel between the JVP and the Opposition forces to win the queen of the deck, will be fought unto the end. The others won will merely be concubines of the harem.

The scorecard for Colombo reads, 48 for the JVP, 29 for SJB, 19 for UNP, and with one or two or three for others, in a municipality of 117 members. Who will they elect as mayor or mayoress?

With SJB’s initial nominee failing to win his ward, the hunt began to find another eligible suitor, with the SJB MP Mujibur Rahman leading the pack. Rahman soon claimed his hunt had been successful, more successful than he had expected it would be. He had found the ideal candidate. No other candidate could be more ideal, he claimed. Lest his discovery’s candidature was sabotaged by enemy forces, if the name leaked, the identity of the joint opposition nominee for Mayor of Colombo would be kept shrouded in absolute secrecy.

With masterly skill, a cloak and dagger air of intrigue was created by Mujibur Rahman to excite curiosity and spur suspense in the manner Ranasinghe Premadasa did with his ‘Kawda may?  Monawada karanne? or ‘Who is this? What is he doing?’ poster to kick off his presidential campaign in ’88.

With the Election Commissioner extending the inaugural date from June 2nd to June 16th, Rahman, to keep the interest in his nominee from lagging, enhanced it further by describing his candidate in the most exalted terms. His nominee was the fittest, the best, and no other man fitter or better to be Mayor of Colombo, lived in the nation’s capital.

Last Sunday, Mujibur Rahman went overboard. ‘Finally, when the name of our candidate is revealed, even the JVP members of the Council will vote for him to be Mayor of Colombo’, Mujibur claimed, with all the zeal of one who proclaims the advent of a Saviour, before whom even infidels will be moved to kneel in worship.

Mujibur was asked by a reporter at the briefing that day, if the name was Rizwi Zarook? Mujibur answered, ‘Yes it’s Rizwi Zarook’. So, with the cat out of the bag, who is Rizwi? He’s a former member of Colombo’s Municipal Council. The JVP, on the other hand, had announced Vraie Cally Balthazaar, a Malima Executive Committee member as their nominee for Mayoress of Colombo, one month ago.

So let the battle begin and let the better man or woman win.

Should the SJB and UNP alliance candidate win, let Sajith and Ranil realise the power of unity and thus bury the axe of hate for good.

WOW! What a magical treat for the yokels to see a flying plane   The natives of the island could hardly believe their eyes as they stared at the strange object flying low in the sky. ‘Is it a bird?’ some asked. ‘Is it Hanuman?,’ some cried loud, with fear gripping their throats, ‘returned to burn the isle to ash?’ But as they scrambled to their sand burrows to flee the fiery attack, one intrepid islander, who had travelled far and wide, shouted, ‘calm down, calm down, it’s just another old Airbus that seems to have got into some problem that makes it fly so low.’ God forbid, the plane and crew were not in any trouble at all but the company that leased the plane was certainly in a soup. Once the isle’s paradisical bird in the sky, the national carrier crashed landed to become the heftiest whitest elephant kept buoyant in the air by pumping billions from Treasury coffers. There had been repeated attempts to sell it off but a misplaced national pride had prevented the sale. MARVEL IN THE SKY: Lankans asked to watch plane fly Like a person abjectly admitting that he had fallen on hard times, so bad that he was forced to sell the family silver to the highest bidder to settle the family debt. Whereas Ranil’s regime had been more bent on partly selling off the national carrier, and reducing the 1.2 billion dollar debt,  hardly had Anura Kumara been sworn in as President,  he made known to the chairman he appointed to run the airline that, come what may, the pride of the nation must firmly stay in the family chest, and not take flight to an Arab’s harem as it had done before. Perhaps, the new sultans in their flying turret, saw in their airborne dreams that, while the world’s jet-setters were amply aware of our pride in the sky, the islanders remained grounded in ignorance, and had never seen an airbus before, let alone a jet plane. Tuesday’s newspapers reported: ‘SriLankan Airlines’ newly added Airbus A330-200 will perform a low-altitude flyover from Colombo Port City to Pandura tomorrow (04), between 8:15 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., allowing the public to enjoy a clear view of the aircraft. According to SriLankan Airlines, the aircraft will then return to Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake. The airline invites general public to witness this special event. Wow| What a magical treat for yokels to see a gigantic garuda, they have not seen before, whizz past them at breakneck speed making a thunderous roar, enough to shatter their eardrums. Wonder what Winston Churchill would  have said of the Sultans who ordered the Airbus pilots to fly so low, hugging the western coast to show off the newly rented baby of the SriLankan fleet to a handful below, merely to let yokel marvel, with their mouths agape and eyes agog, the eighth wonder of the  world that the  loss making state-owned enterprise had acquired on lease during the new regime’s seven months in office? Would he have praised them, in the same vein, as he had praised Britain’s Air Force pilots for saving Britain from burning in flames, by staving off Luftwaffe bomber jets during World War II, and said, ‘Never in the field of commercial flight, had so few owed millions of public money, which they had spent to pay for a meaningless wasteful flight, to so many? Or would he simply have said, ‘Balderdash’? It now behoves the citizens to ask, how much did this Colombo Port City to Panadura turnround low-altitude flight over the west coast sea, carrying no paying passengers, cost the public purse?  What was its purpose, what did it achieve, what gain did this needless public exhibitionism bring this already debt straddled state owned Srilankan Airlines? And in this day and age, when any tangible benefit rendered to the public, may be held as a heinous offense of causing a loss to the state, how much more heinous would the benefit be, if it was intangible? Easter Sunday blast victims receive earthly justice at last Earthly justice was finally delivered to all the Easter Sunday bomb victims when they were awarded the final installment of the record-breaking compensation sum of over Rs. 300 million by the court appointed Office of Reparation before a bench of Supreme Court Judges presided by Chief Justice Murdu Fernando. THE CRYING CONTINUES: The ever falling tear of families they left behind The Cardinal’s advocate Shammil Perera PC, whose relentless pursuit for justice to the families of those who died and those left maimed in the bloody Easter carnage six month ago, had in the end triumphed in the highest court of the land, profusely thanked and expressed the gratitude of the church to the Lordships of the Supreme Court for having delivered the landmark judgement on 12th January 2023. President Counsel Shammil Perera also conveyed the deep appreciation of the Catholic Church, for taking, thereafter, the pre-requisites steps to ensure the funds would be properly disbursed to all who fell victim to the bomb blast. The quest to compensate the Easter Sunday blast victims in monetary terms, through manmade courts, has finally ended. All that remains is the hunt to find the elusive mastermind behind the dastardy. But that belongs to a higher court, far above this earthy realm. Divine justice does not descend from its heavenly abode to suit one’s convenience or to grant political advantage to one to quell a political foe. Neither does it descend to grant sport to spectators in the stand. Nemesis will arrive with bridle and whip to avenge this brutal slaughter of the innocents, at a time of heaven’s choosing.