By Hema Senanayake –

Hema Senanayake

I do not know who will be the next president. But I know the sublime qualities he should have. The word ‘sublime’ has been defined as “of such excellence as to inspire great admiration.” In that sense sublime quality is an excellent quality that inspires the great admiration among others. Do we have political leaders with this quality today? Before I continue with this discussion, let us pay attention to an important prediction made recently.

According to that prediction, “the hallmark of the coming six months would be disastrous that involves violence and criminal cheating of the general public.” This is not something forecasted by any astrologer. But this analysis has been made by a Buddhist clergy. His name is Venerable Rajagiriye Ariyagnana who is popularly known as “the monk walking on the path of Enlighted monks of the past” (Rahathun wedi-maga osse). 

Here, what is important is not the prediction itself but the assumption used by the Venerable monk in his prediction. Being true to his religious belief, he assumes, that the level craving for political power would be highest in coming months, in all political leaders in the government and in the opposition. Craving is a most sinful action, according to Buddhism. So, when the craving is running so high for grabbing political power, so should be the occurrences of misdeeds, politics related violence and mass cheating. No political leader who craves for power will not bring this country out of the current mess even if elected to be the next president. If this assumption is true, I guess, it is true, then the above prediction will become true.

However, the only chance to change the course is to change the mindset of our leaders. Only people who holds the universal adult franchise could change their mindset. Or else people has the power to bring a totally new ethical man into the presidency. Such person with such excellence as to inspire great admiration might change the whole dynamic of the political power craving mindset of all politicians. In this regard Dr. Ajith Colonne has made a significant observation.

Dr. Ajith Collonne, who is now known to many, after he appeared on ‘Talk with Chatura’ TV program on Derana TV, is an expert or at least a very enthusiast of the Chaos Theory. In brief Chaos theory is a mathematical theory. “It (Chaos Theory) looks at certain systems that are very sensitive. A very small change may make the system behave completely differently. Very small changes in the starting position of a chaotic system make a big difference after a while. This is why even large computers cannot tell the weather for more than a few days in the future. Even if the weather was perfectly measured, a small change or error will make the prediction completely wrong” Wikipedia. Since, it is presumed that even a butterfly can make enough wind to change weather, and hence, chaotic system is sometimes defined as systems having “butterfly effect.” 

Sri Lanka’s politics is a very chaotic system prior to 2015 presidential election. It seemed that Maithripala Sirisena’s crossing initially created a ‘butterfly effect’ that subsequently changed the whole system on January 08, 2015. This was well predicted by Dr. Ajith Colonne as far back as in 2013 by applying the fundamentals of Chaos Theory. His prediction came true.

The current political system is more chaotic than it was prior to 2015. Dr. Ajith Colonne now predicts that the next president is not in politics yet. That person cannot be a man who has better craving for power than current political leaders, therefore such a man might not be able to create a ‘butterfly effect’ to change the whole system. He must be a selfless leader who concern more with the needs and wishes of the people than himself or his family. According to Ajith Colonne, such person could be a person like U.B. Wanninayake who was the Minister of Finance from 1965 to 1970.

Colonne explains that Wanninayake’s son had passed a test held by the Central Bank in order to recruit officers to the bank, when Wanninayake was the Minister of Finance. After finding out that his son was going to get an appointment in the Central Bank, Minister Wanninayake did not want his son to get the appointment during his tenure as the Minister of Finance. Only such kind of unselfish man could create a ‘butterfly effect’ in this time around as people of the country in general do not endorse any of the current political leaders and they themselves know about it.

Who is that person? Let us do a search! Let us insists that major political parties must do the same.