Gotabhaya Dictates Foolishness

The appointment of Ven. Galagodaatte Gnanasara as the head of the so-called one-country-one-law presidential task force  has dumfounded the sixty nine lakhs who voted Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to power.It is a mandate not at all a LICENCE for a leader to decide or as his excellency pleases, but only the authority the people conferred on a political leader, a representative who promised to uplift the  Sri Lankas in dire straits to unprecedented tall heights.

It is reported that the Rajapaksa siblings had been flabbergasted when one of the coalition SLPP leaders at a recent meeting voiced displeasure and discontent on the appointment of Ven,Galagodaatte Gnanasara , definitely a controversial character as the head of the so called ONE COUNTRY-ONE LAW-presidential task force.The 6.9 million people need to know what right the unorthodox leader possessed for this drastic unsociable decision.The decision and reasoning challenges understanding. People who voted has made the President unerring.

If the SLPP leaders believe that the incumbent President’s choices and acts cannot be interrogated or confronted simply because of his mandate, then they will have to explain why they protested against what the late Presidents J. R. Jayewardene and R. Premadasa did. They held street protests, filed court cases, and carried out malicious propaganda onslaughts against those leaders. They even went to Geneva against President Premadasa. They also campaigned against President Maithripala Sirisena and tried to oust him in spite of his mandate, didn’t they?

It is being debated in some quarters that Gnanasara Thera’s position at issue is unparalleled. But we believe that it is similar in most respects to the appointment by President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Mervyn Silva as the Deputy Minister of Media, in 2010, despite the latter’s history of attacking journalists, and media institutions. Protests, however, brought Mahinda to his senses, and he removed Silva from that post soon afterwards. If he had cared to banish the boot-licking political misfit from politics, he would have been able to prevent public opinion from turning against him to a significant scale.

The Yahapalana government was frightened of elections. It adjourned the Provincial Council elections, but had to face the Local Government polls, where its constituents suffered an humiliating defeat. Whether the people who gave the incumbent leaders mandates in 2019 and 2020 are still on their side will be seen if the delayed PC polls are held.

Sunil Thenabadu in Brisbane