By S. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole –

Gulf Between Party Manifestos and their Authors’ Life-styles

We are being inundated with manifestos. It is said that clergymen who live horrible lives can preach some of the best sermons. It is a bit like Donald Trump who boasts of grabbing women by their genitals while he sells gold-coloured Bibles.

So it is with political parties and the gap between their governance-styles and manifestos. A clever politician can steal from the country and still produce the best manifestos imaginable. It is unfortunate that our newspapers focus on the manifestos rather than on credibility based on the life-styles of the manifesto authors.

System Change for the Legal System: Threat of Defamation

A part of the problem is the laws pertaining to defamation and the ICCPR Act for which Ranil is responsible. If I write truthfully pointing out that a particular politician is a thief, a defamation charge against me would ruin me financially while for the thief who has stolen millions, his legal expense would be like water off a duck’s back, especially if he is a lawyer. For me, to overawe a false defamation charge I would need to spend a fortune. The government has to take charge of prosecuting our politician-thieves and in the meantime, we dare not accuse them in op-ed pieces. We are therefore restricted to writing sweet nothings without touching on the corruption, nor about the manifestos. We keep off writing about the almost universally vile character of our politicians and the legal system they use to escape due punishment.

System Change for the Press

“System Change” also must involve the press. In tonight’s (2 Sept.) News First 9 pm news, Namal Rajapakse announced his Manifesto promising to remove corruption in 3 years. Why did the editors give that prominence when no one believes it? When did brazen propaganda become prime time news?  If Namal wants us to be free of corruption, he must explain what happened at his Law College Final Exam and return his certificate as necessary. He is brainwashing us and News First is helping him do that. We need real news. We are not idiot bystanders.

Likewise, after that on the news, Ranil asks referring to the JVP insurrection, “Can we forget 1971?” Why did the news channel, if truly serving the people, not ask if we can forget the UNP-driven 1983 riots? The news agencies are working for the corrupt old order And then they announced salary increases in violation of election laws by Ranil. Even the Election Commission is castrated. System Change is a must.

Analysing manifestos is therefore a vain exercise. It is like criticizing Bishop Kenneth Fernando’s call on 23 Aug. at a seminar for System Change – he himself took an unauthorized Rs. 50 lakhs for a car. All are for “System Change,” but only on paper. But who will do something about it?

I see only the softspoken Anura Kumara Dissanayake who has not cheated us through tall promises and outright theft. That he has not promised the skies to us Tamils speaks for his honesty. I gain confidence in the NPP from my friend Dr. Sanath Alahakoon at Peradeniya who served with merit at the CEB in Chandrika’s government during 2004-2005.

Thieving and Oppression

Instead of looking at presidential candidates’ manifestos it is more appropriate to look at their actual character and deeds. Many things point to thieving and oppression being the hallmarks of Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Rajapaksas. This view is well buttressed by the long line of thieves and thugs who have moved to Ranil at the last minute. I have already written on why it is a bad idea to vote for Ranil, especially because of his association with the torture at Batalanda. Ranil’s dastardly deeds go back to the 1983 riots orchestrated by his uncle and his speech at the rebuilt Pettah market after it was burnt down in the riots where he made a speech that the Bandaranaikes favoured Indian traders and they  the UNP had now set this right. This he said as the new shops were handed over to Sinhalese (see S.R.H. Hoole, “Can we Vote for Ranil Wickremesinghe?” The Sunday Observer, Op-Ed page, 17 Sept. 2000).

I had hoped that Sajit Premadasa would have a better record, but he foolishly took on Kudumbi Jeyenthiran  with an ugly background as his Jaffna organizer. I believe it is dangerous to write more. He was replaced by one Victor Stanley who lost no time in joining Ranil and becoming “Jaffna District Coordinator for Christian Affairs to President Wickremesinghe,” as of Aug. 2024. Ranil writes big about his efficient governance but this is an indication of the quality of people who would work for him.

The terrible men who have crossed over to Sajith – for example G.L. Peiris, and Dayasiri Jayasekera after faithfully serving the Rajapakses for years – do not augur well for a clean administration should Sajith win. In fact, one cross-over was seen bailing out those arrested by the Police for attacking Muslims in Puttalam and taking them away in his car. He is now with Sajith. This is why at a time when the need is to advance minority rights, the ITAK recommending Sajith reflects poor leadership. Sajith too promised war-crimes trials just before the last Presidential election and then reversed himself as that did not take him far with the Sinhalese. However, Sajith is certainly better than if ITAK had recommended Ranil. Arianenthiran, the Common Tamil Candidate put forward by some of the ex-militants, is known to have been close to the LTTE. I am relieved that the ITAK had the good sense not to make him their Common Candidate.

Why did ITAK Favour Sajith over Anura?

Although even high ITAK officials’ wives tell me privately that they would vote for Anura despite the ITAK’s endorsement of Sajith, they are reluctant to support the JVP publicly because, as they say, the JVP caused the demerger of the North-East Province. That pernicious move was in Oct. 2006, 18 years ago, by three JVP Members (including 2 MPs). The three Petitioners were Trincomalee District MP Jayantha Wijeysekera, Ampara District MP L.P. Wasantha Piyatissa and A.S. Mohamed Buhary. An additional fear involves socialist legality. As Groundeviews points out,

socialist legality puts political purpose and the party’s decisions before the law. In administrative practice, this means that the state is guided more by party protocol and direct instruction than by law or formal rules. As a doctrine, socialist legality stands in direct opposition to Western conceptions of [the] rule of law.

However, the NPP is not the JVP and there are coalition partners to moderate any unparliamentary tendencies. To suggest that the NPP will be undemocratic is to say that the UNP is democratic. Unless we are sharp, Ranil with trick us like this. Look at how election laws and Supreme Court judgments are tossed aside even today. Ranil is lawless. Ranil’s stunts like Donald Trump’s, assume that we are idiots believing anything he says.

In contrast, as Vishwamitra states, those who expect to lose power, and suspicious that their misdeeds and corrupt practices are waiting to be exposed, [will fear a change of government]. The Rajapaksa family and their immediate cohorts are a band of thieves whose very preservation as a family-junta is being threatened and their last-ditch attempt should be anticipated. […] No way the Rajapaksas and Wickremesinghes are going to go away with their hands folded and heads bowed down.

On the quality of Ranil Wickremesinghe’s administration and how he took over as President when no one was willing, I am a thorough skeptic. I believe the cash shortage was orchestrated by the West which hated Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was ousted. The Aragalya came out of the blues and was well-funded. The tents they used were of unusually high quality as I could see. Chaos was engendered. Ranil came in. He beat up and violently disbursed the Aragalya crowd and then the money pipeline spiggots were opened with IMF, Indian and even Bangladeshi funds coming in. And voila, we are on the road to recovery. Judge for yourselves if Ranil can take credit. There can be no new Aragalya with Ranil at the helm with a violent army, guns and water canons.

This does not mean I am rooting for the horrible Rajapakses. We know how the country was raped by them. Their life-style bears no credible explanation. The West would do business with anyone who brings in money for them. Suffice it to say that my student who was teaching at St. Thomas’ was asked by the school administration to inflate an important son’s internal scores. Perhaps they were used to get him into the Navy. Echoes of law college exams? We do not want thieves, nor do we want cheats. Manifestos should not be a tool for hiding these ugly truths about our politicians.

As reported in the press, the Rajapakses’ Caucasian Shepherd is one of the most expensive breeds available in Sri Lanka and its maintenance costs at least Rs. 55,000 a month. … One should not forget the stories that appeared in the media immediately after the last Presidential election that there were airconditioned rooms at Temple Trees for the highly expensive pets of the former first family.

I say that Namal Baby will not care two hoots for the poor!

The NPP Manifesto and Murtaza Jafferjee

Having spoken of bland manifestos that fail to betray the hard-heartedness of the parties that put them out, a word on the NPP Manifesto is in order. One Murtaza Jafferjee has critiqued it. Prof. Vijaya Kumar has critiqued the critique so I will treat it only briefly after pointing out that he, whether genuinely or not, takes the same view as I in stressing the importance of protecting the interests of the common man.

If Jafferjee’s piece is meant to be a staid piece on economics, it is not. The first bullet point about meddling with “the foundational principles of the law” has no meaning as the law is always what an authority such as a state writes and what is written can be altered. What then is this foundational principle? Religion?

The 3rd bullet point that what they should not do is “revisit the debt sustainability  analysis for higher GDP growth will indicate …” has no proper meaning and the sentence needs fixing. Positively, the NPP proposals resonate with him although he seems to think that a manifesto should not be aspirational. Indeed, a manifesto must aspire to reach some goal.

Jafferjee errs in saying

Sri Lanka’s forex crisis was due to loose fiscal and monetary policies that led to excess consumption and investment.  It was NOT due to poor export performance [or] insufficient exports.

Poor export performance and insufficient exports were and are certainly a part of the problem of forex shortages.

The NPP’s plans for the economy are criticised saying its proposals for additional social protection and welfare policies will cost the state more than now while promising to reduce taxes – that when your expenditure is higher, your income also should be higher or it would necessitate printing money, going against the IMF’s debt sustainability analysis

No. Jafferjee’s analysis wrongly assumes that the same corrupt bunch of politicians will be running the show. Expenses can be raised if the huge leakages to corruption are stopped. Remember how Chandrika used to call a Rajapakse brother “Mr. 10%”? That 10% will go a long way towards uplifting the poor.

The NPP’s analysis, therefore, has a model where no money is stolen and  the savings will go into social services for the poor. It aspires to build a nation where no one falls through the cracks.

A Volunteer Programme to Help the Poor

With 4 years of undergraduate studies in New South Wales, I venture that Jefferjee has not seen poverty. I am engaged in a program where I take contributions from my children and other relations, friends and students and support the poor in the North and East. It began when the crisis started and desperate people were running away to India by boat with their families.

What I do is principally is giving grocery bags of Rs. 7000 and living expenses for unsupported students in tertiary colleges, and occasionally helping widows buy a cow or sewing machines, and tools to start a trade for an incapacitated husband.

In that project I have had to travel to remote places where I see people so poor that some women are dirty with unwashed hair and soiled dressing gowns. Other donees such as between Mullaitivu and Trincomalee in Thiriyai live off the jungles from honey and firewood, while others in Verugal just South of Trinco on the way to Batticaloa have no proper roads to school except muddy pathways once they leave the Trinco-Battcaloa road. To distribute in Alihambai in Batticaloa, we struggled to get diesel permits and were helped by Father Joe Mary of the Society of Jesus. My brother’s friend, Bunchy Rahman, gave 200 solar bulbs which were distributed in the jungles beyond Madu Matha Church with no electricity. It was depressing. As recenly as Christmas I went to give exercise books and school material through muddy pathways in Verugal. I find myself often saying no instead of supplying needs for lack of funds. Off Vavuniya in Olumadu I see abandoned Tamil villages being taken over by Sinhalese. The project supported a teacher for the 3 months preceding their exams.

What I do is grossly insufficient and a mere drop in the bucket. To address these we need a government  with a heart and the resources that cares for people, not one that has ministers in BMWs running everywhere with a police escort scaring and even killing people in road accidents and getting their drivers to take the blame as claimed twice by the police. One of them wants to be President and many are willing to vote for him! I do not understand our people, nor our Tamil MPs who have bought vehicles that are much bigger or fancier than they need. Almost every MP has become rich after being elected.

I see only NPP MPs living like ordinary folk with an eye on the welfare of the people.

I do not see a word on this aspect of looking after the poor in Murtaza Jafferjee’s analysis which deals with numbers, not people. He must have aspirations for the people to work or comment on manifestos.

The US Elections

The US is the richest country in the world. Of the two serious candidates for Preside, Donald Trump is a clown and a goon, and a convicted serial rapist. He has support from idiotic Americans just like our corrupt politicians have support from our people. He is for the rich and the free market like Ranil. Many of his supporters are racists like those who orchestrated the 1983 riots.

On the other hand, Kamala Harris is for the poor and the middle-class like Dissanayake. The people of America seem to be for her and those who are not, are increasingly moving towards her. I believe that by Nov. 4, we will see overwhelming support for those who want the middle-class and the poor looked after.

Is that not Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s position? Support for Harris or for Dissanayake is a vote with the heart; a vote for the less fortunate. Like in America, our people must move quickly towards the candidate who cares for us by 21 Sept. After all, there is nothing to indicate any corrupt practice from the soft-spoken, gentlemanly Dissanayake.