By Vishwamithra –

“Hopelessness is a feeling. It’s not a fact.” ~ Anohni

Anura Kumara Dissanayake | Photo Anuruddha Lokuhapuarachchi

When the rich hear it, they dread; when all hope seems to be gone for ever, the hapless and poor fall further down the ladder until they hit the floor. The song of the poor is indeed poignant and sometimes even enchanting but never to be unheard for what was heard cannot be undone. The rhythmical melody of life narrated from the unwilling corners cannot be ignored nor shall it be suppressed. From the lips of the wretched cascades the appeal of a slice of our men and women whose lives are being measured by hours, not by years as those who spend their luxuries in star-class hotels and corridors of lust and avarice. Scattered garments and disheveled bed-top tell the whole story of how the rich and scandalous waste their ill-earned dollars and cents without any measurable sense.

For seventy six years this song has been heard by many hundreds of these social cockroaches; they had buttered the better side the bread. Thanks mainly to the greed and desires of those who funded the expensive lifestyles of politicos, the country ran itself to the ground. The not-so-rich kept on crisscrossing and meandering the soiled and unclean streets of politics. With no qualification other than a BA degree at the end of their name, graduates springing out from the universities, these hapless men and women saw no horizon other than what is being swallowed at the distance by monstrous and ever-threatening dark clouds.

Politicians have dominated the administrative landscape for more than eight decades. Its macro effect is the country’s bankruptcy. Yet the country’s restaurants are overflowing with big-spending clienteles. Expense accounts held by the private sector’s top notch executives could not care less about those who look through the windows and breath sighs of envy, jealousy and hatred. The class distinction has grown exponentially and it begs to be measured in terms of the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots. Ministers and other politicos enter the closed rooms of power and lust; their esoteric desires are being well and truly satisfied, often beyond wildest imagination. In the play of these abstruse deeds, the victims are those whose only ambition is to earn a day’s wage in order to feed their families.  Degenerate and decadent lifestyle is being maintained by the victims of the system that is looming for a fundamental change; and that change is on the horizon.

The people are increasingly growing suspicious about Sajith Premadasa‘s willingness to go after those who have been alleged to have played out our country’s treasury. Even the memories of the plunder of the last couple of regimes, especially of the Rajapaksa family and its Ministerial henchmen, seems to be fading away. The public have more immediate and telling demands to satisfy in their own way.

But instituting a trustworthy mechanism of the rule of law and accountability is a must and in fact, one of the top priorities of the new government. Will Sajith oblige the public demand or would he run away from that basic responsibility and start forgetting to bring those who have been alleged to have played out government funds before the law of the country. Holding those responsible for those alleged crimes is a fundamental duty of the new administration. The people have faith in an AKD administration, if elected, to pursue the culprits; but how about Sajith and his SJB? In fact, one salient factor that would influence the voter’s mind is this basic premise.

The country’s Supreme Court has figured it out and declared that the Rajapaksa regime was responsible for gross mismanagement of our economy causing it to collapse in the most devastating manner. If the Supreme Court is of such an opinion, why cannot the elected officials follow the same rule? The people ask that question and Sajith and the SJB are deafeningly quiet about it. Those who are identified with the status quo, those who have a vested interest in sustaining a system that has been looking after their own interests would not be open to pursuing such goals of holding fellow parliamentarians accountable.

Sajith Premadasa cannot be silent about this major issue any longer. The issue of accountability is irking the voter. On the other hand, would Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his NPP, not as a matter of political vengeance but as a genuine need of the hour, go after those who were responsible for these unspeakable crimes against the general public of the country?

As I wrote in my previous column, who shall the voter trust? Not only in matters of accountability and transparency, but also establishing good governance and transforming the current ailing economy into a robust and a thriving one. AKD and his NPP must realize that pursuing power and arriving at the desired end could be far easier than governing a devastated economy and a desperate people. It may be excruciatingly painful to impose some temporary hardships on a people who were promised the exact opposite during the campaign time. This reality has dawned on many a political leader in the past. AKD is not the first and he certainly won’t be the last.

Crowds come for their meetings; their eager attention should not be exploited as blind loyalty. Even during the campaign that brought Gotabaya Rajapaksa to the throne had such large crowds and those  crowds too were eager for a change and hope. They were let down by an incompetent and highly overrated Gotabaya. The people are still desperate, but they are no longer blind.

In less than two weeks the country will have a new President and soon after, within a couple of months, a new legislature too. The NPP is very vocal about their preparations; plans and blueprints for the country’s ills have been prepared, they say. Will the people be ready to test them? Or would they still go for the devil they know however much corrupt and incompetent the devil is?

The manner in which Sajith and the SJB are running the show is nauseating. The nepotism factor that has crept into the inner chambers of the SJB is palpable. With Sajith’s wife on the one hand and his sister on the other, the organic functioning of the party has been reduced to a family affair that is brewing to be blown off, bursting the lid. The so-called intellectuals who are around Sajith have, at least for the time being, given up and succumbed to the vagaries of nepotistic demands of Sajith and family. For how long men like Eran Wickremaratne and Harsh de Silva tolerate this? One is reminded, firstly of the Sirimavo Bandaranaike government in the early part of the seventies and secondly of the Rajapaksas  in the first two decades of the twenty first century. Nepotism may seem tolerable at the beginning, but half way down, it would be the factor that burst asunder many a coalition.

AKD and his NPP have not shown any such shameful tendencies. AKD hails from very humble beginnings with no princes to be crowned. The common man could be very simple and humble but he is not lacking in observation and scrutiny. The hapless may be poor and in pain. But his desires and dreams are not dead yet. His painstaking journey needs to come to a joyous end. That melodious  journey is yearning for a fruitful destination. His song must turn itself into a one of joy and delight and pleasure. It is all up to AKD and his supporters to make it happen.

*The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.com