{"id":124312,"date":"2014-05-09T12:48:56","date_gmt":"2014-05-09T07:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=124312"},"modified":"2014-05-17T00:23:15","modified_gmt":"2014-05-16T18:53:15","slug":"the-unp-can-take-a-page-from-mahinda-chinthana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-unp-can-take-a-page-from-mahinda-chinthana\/","title":{"rendered":"The UNP Can Take A Page From Mahinda Chinthana"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

The Government, as usual, put its own spin on what happened in Hambantota when some UNP parliamentarians decided to check out the airport and harbor.\u00a0 Mayor Eraj Fernando<\/span><\/a>\u2019s antics, however, were caught on camera.\u00a0 There\u2019s no erasing that kind of belligerence (that\u2019s a mild word, by the way) regardless of one\u2019s spin-doctoring skills.\u00a0 Attempting to do so would invariably result in convincing the audience that its intelligence is being insulted.\u00a0 The next option is damage control.\u00a0 And the best damage-controller around is Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, when he met with the editors of print and electronic media institutions, the President said \u2018no one is above the law\u2019.\u00a0 He added that he was not talking about the Bodu Bala Sena<\/span><\/a> only when he made that remark.\u00a0 It applied to politicians as well, he said.\u00a0 He gave a lesson in history by way of providing context.\u00a0 He spoke of other politicians who have been attacked.\u00a0 He spoke also of politicians who have gone berserk.\u00a0 He named names.\u00a0 He even fired a broadside at the media, pointing out that when crowds, egged on by politicians, attack members of the ruling party, the media calls it \u2018reaction by angry citizens\u2019 whereas when a group of people led by a member of the ruling party take on opposition politicians, it\u2019s an \u2018paalaka pakshaye mera kandaayamak\u2019<\/i> (thugs of the ruling party). \u00a0Having provided context, he came up with the \u2018no o\u2019ne is above the law\u2019 statement.<\/p>\n

The point on history can be conceded. The President certainly can\u2019t undo time.\u00a0 He is, however, the leader of the UPFA and the fact that these people who are not above the law continue to thumb nose at the law and law enforcement authorities are not going down very well with the people.\u00a0 They vote.\u00a0 It ought to be a concern.<\/p>\n

Complicity in such attacks aside, President Rajapaksa made a very pertinent point about politics in general.\u00a0 He said, \u2018game ayath ekka giyaa nam ohoma venne nehe\u2019<\/i> (this would not have happened if [they] had gone with the locals). He observed that the visiting MPs had not invited UNP stalwarts of the area Sajith Premadasa<\/span><\/a> and Dilip Wedarachchi to be part of the delegation.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know if they were deliberately sidelined, but we do know that there\u2019s no love lost between Premadasa and this particular team.\u00a0 There is an obvious reference to intra-party squabbles here.\u00a0 The \u2018Mahinda Chinthana\u2019 page that\u2019s relevant, however, is the one about \u2018game aya\u2019<\/i> (village-people or \u2018local folk\u2019).<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one major difference between the UPFA (under Mahinda Rajapaksa) and the UNP (under Ranil Wickremesinghe<\/span><\/a>), it\u2019s this matter of being with or being above the \u2018game aya\u2019<\/i> , respectively.\u00a0 That\u2019s not \u2018Mahinda Chinthana\u2019 strictly speaking.\u00a0 It\u2019s basic politics or a fundamental tenet of pragmatic political practices that can yield benefits to practitioner.\u00a0 It\u2019s become part of \u2018Mahinda Chinthana<\/span><\/a>\u2019 by default, i.e. simply because it\u2019s something that the UNP doesn\u2019t do or does poorly.<\/p>\n

Sajith, when he\u2019s not wrecking the party by berating the leadership in public (it\u2019s hard to think of a time when an opposition figure of corresponding stature was this soft on the particular government), spends time with his voters, that much has to be conceded.\u00a0\u00a0 As a pretender to the UNP throne, he ought to be on the move, on the ground, covering all parts of the country, but surprisingly, the man has declared he will restrict activity to Hambantota.\u00a0 The tragedy is that conceding limitations of that self-imposed restriction, Sajith is streets ahead of the rest of the UNP.<\/p>\n

One thing is clear.\u00a0 Voice-cut regime-critics won\u2019t cut too much ice with the general public.\u00a0 It is easy to organize a press conference.\u00a0 It is easy to fire off a media release.\u00a0 It is easy to make scathing attacks in parliament.\u00a0 That\u2019s essentially AC-politics, comfy-zone politics.\u00a0 Enough to get enough votes to make it to Parliament but not enough to take the party out of the political quagmire it now resides in, forget dragging it up the mountain to the high seats of power.<\/p>\n

To go with the game aya<\/i>, one has to go to<\/i> the game aya.<\/i>\u00a0 Rounding up a couple of dozen people from the electorate to make numbers at a demonstration in Colombo doesn\u2019t add up to going to or being with the game aya.<\/i>\u00a0 There are a few UNPers who do that, but that\u2019s the exception and not the rule.\u00a0 You can\u2019t fight a game manussaya<\/i> (a local man) like Mahinda Rajapaksa that way.<\/p>\n

Mahinda Rajaksa goes to the gama<\/i>.\u00a0 In many ways.\u00a0 He makes unplanned stops.\u00a0 He visits old friends. He pays respect to old timers whose youth was spent working for the party.\u00a0 If in an earlier age, the king walked among subjects incognito to find out what\u2019s what, Mahinda Rajapaksa does it up front.\u00a0 He may be misled on policy matters by \u2018experts\u2019, but few would say that he doesn\u2019t know what the ground situation is like.\u00a0 That\u2019s knowledge that counts when it comes to vote-getting.\u00a0 Sure, it\u2019s not about turning the country around, it\u2019s just politics, but it is politics that work.<\/p>\n

It is unlikely that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was giving a tip to the UNP about how to do politics.\u00a0 He was probably playing on intra-party rivalry.\u00a0 Still, he let slip something.\u00a0 It\u2019s a catch the UNP can take with both hands.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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