by Malinda Seneviratne
Tilvin Silva, General Secretary of the JVP got it right when he said that the PA has a flat tyre. Whether this is reason enough to concentrate on attacking the UNP or offer the PA the party jack, is another matter, but it is certainly the case that the PA is flat, as in "on its face". Taking of faces, I am reminded of the 1994 campaign. This is how it all started.

After winning the Southern Provincial Council election (with the help of large sections of the media, the left, NGOs etc.), the first thing that Chandrika did was to "assure" the business community that the PA was not anti-business or against the "free" economy. Mangala and others on the other hand promised the people "an open economy with a human face". Back then I expressed considerable reservation about the PA and its many (and wild) promises. The Southern Provincial Council elections made it very clear that the UNP had enjoyed power for 17 years, not so much on account of efficiency or dictatorial measures as the fact that the then opposition was inept and clumsy. They were getting, I predicted a default vote. The past 7 years only showed that they were even more outrageously inefficient than anyone thought. There was no "face", human or otherwise. There was just faeces. And this came in many forms. At the end of the day, the PA is looking for places to hide its face.

Strangely enough, there are still people around who are wont to put all their intellectual eggs in the SLFP corner of the PA basket. They believe that the SLFP is the party of Sinhalatva and that it is upto all patriotic Sinhalese to revive it. Some resuscitation is certainly called for as far as the Sinhala people are concerned, but I tend to believe that no amount of "mouth-to-mouth" can give life to the dead. For the SLFP is dead. Period. For all intents and purposes it is the SLMP that dominates the PA, Mahinda Rajapakse and a few old loyalists notwithstanding. And even the PA is in poor health by the looks of it.

These people argue that this Sinhalatva kavandaya (body) is only in need of a head. What an indictment on Her Excellency, I cannot help observing. In any case we are not living in fairy tales where heads can be replaced and mutilated bodies mutated. Rather, we are living a nightmare where the Sinhala people are told that a horrendously traitorous political organisation is the representative of their cultural heritage and aspirations. And as I said, since there is no "SLFP" to speak of. Neither is there a kavandaya to wax eloquent about. The Sinhala people therefore will have to look elsewhere for leadership and upliftment.

We are told that we should work for Bandaranaike Mahattayage Duwa. Not that the father was anything close to Diyasen Kumaraya, as he is sometimes made out to be. He did touch the pulse of the nation. He did not understand its heart. He could not. For he was not a man of the people. A man of the people is a qualitatively different creature from a self-proclaimed man of the people. The latter can never be a man for the people. This is why almost 50 years after the Swabhasha experiment we have a gandabba nation, neither here nor there; half uprooted from cultural sensibility and yet unable to operate in the language of access, English. Banda never understood that it need not be one or the other. Or one at the expense of the other. Sinhalaness, after all, owes as much to Pali as to Hela.

Despite all this, he was streets ahead of the Marxists, who for all their good intentions, were the most uprooted political beings this country has known. No wonder they are floating listlessly in unfamiliar political seas now. The JVP, on the other hand, is a gandabba creature that is qualitatively different. It has a cultural heart and a pseudo-Marxist head.

For all his faults, I believe that we sadly lack men of SWRD’s calibre. Sometimes, great men and women have great genes and transmit these to their progeny. Unfortunately, his children have proved that they can’t hold a candle to their old man. Or Mrs. B for that matter.

Chandrika’s regime has practically turned her back on the policies of her father. True, times change and sons and daughters need not necessarily follow the paths their parents trod, for parents, like all people, are not perfect. But Chandrika has done a 180 degree turn. This is also ok. She is an individual and has the freedom to believe and act according to her beliefs. She does not, however, have the moral right to do all this while invoking the name of her father. He was known as a silver tongued orator. The daughter’s recent "performance" on BBC would have made the old man cringe, I am sure. More importantly, what matters is not Chandrika’s oratorical skills or the lack thereof, but her vision for the nation and her track record.

Let us consider what she has done over the past 7 years. She came to power in 1994 promising to end the dhooshanaya-bheeshanaya that the UNP was responsible for. Come 2001, The PA has moved to remove the acting Director General of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption, Rienzie Arsecularatne. It has been alleged that this is an illegal move and steps are underway to take up the matter with the Supreme Court. Chandrika herself has said that there are ministers in her cabinet who were corrupt. Why she did not use her executive powers to remove them is anybody’s guess. Seven years of power and the PA has effectively forfeited the right to charge anyone with dhooshanaya, not least of all because they have tried to bribe the voters with a series of re-election-targeted "incentives"!

How about the bheeshanaya? Clearly no one can beat the UNP when it comes to the bheeshanaya. The PA is still to face an uprising, but with no insurrection in sight. PA goons really went to town during the Wayamba Provincial Council elections. And last year too. And if the incidents of October 29th in Minuwangoda are anything to go by, looks like we are going to see a lot of bloodshed over the next 30 odd days. How can the PA explain off Mervyn Silva’s candidature other than an endorsement of hooliganism? How can it explain the failure to bring to book Mahipala Herath after the Mawanella incident? Simple. Thugs rule and the PA endorses thuggery.

Let’s get to the nitty-gritty of key issues. In 1994, the PA was talking about turning around the economy and bringing lasting peace to the country. Some economic turn-around they have brought about! Growth has plummeted to 0.4% in the second quarter before the Katunayake attack and its repercussions. There is no stock market to speak of today. Industries are closing down by the dozen. Overall the only "turn" has been "downturn". Poverty has been the sole winner, unfortunately.

Various theories have been constructed about bin Laden, poor performance of the global economy, uncertainty, the so-called war against the LTTE etc. More hogwash than anything else, actually. I put it down to gross incompetence, mismanagement and rampant corruption in all quarters. The PA probably deserve ISO certification for the high standards of inefficiency achieved over the past seven years.

How about "peace"? The PA came to power on a default vote and not, as some of our peace advocates say, because they advocated a "negotiated settlement" to the so-called ethnic conflict. If that were the case, Wickramabahu’s NSSP would have got the most number of votes. In 2000, the PA’s main campaigner, Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, was for an all out military defeat of the LTTE. The point is, the PA never had a plan. Was never serious about "peace" or about "war". The result? The Sri Lankan armed forces suffered the worst defeats during the last 7 years. Casualty rates skyrocketed. Profiteering became widespread.

Most seriously, the PA allowed Eelam reconstructions of our history to be openly touted by all and sundry. The PA has shamelessly allowed racist minority groups to dictate its agenda and through the proposed New Constitution last year, was all set to hand over Eelam on a platter to Prabhakaran. What about the Sinhalese people in this country? I remember that pithy JVP slogan, "kolambata kiri, apata kekiri" which was hijacked by Nespray vis. "kolambata kiri, apatath kiri". At the end of the day, the Sinhalese can say, "apita hulang!"

Today, the PA brags about getting the USA and Britain to ban the LTTE. This happened because those countries were lobbied by Sinhala organisations and to be fair, by the most competent Foreign Minister we have had in years, Lakshman Kadirgamar. He was able to do this, because he is a patriot, is competent and not interested in party politics. And he was helped by the fact that the USA and Britain was savvy to the LTTE’s destructive character.

What about the people? I remember the PA shedding crocodile tears about the working class during the ‘94 campaign. And how it crushed the wave of strikes that gripped the Investment Promotion Zones immediately after capturing power. Chandrika went on record to say that when she promised "freedom" she did not mean "freedom of the wild ass". Well, she has done nothing to curb the val booru nidahasa enjoyed by highly pampered, union-bashing companies. Remember the famous Workers’ Charter championed by Mahinda Rajapakse, and how it was unceremoniously brushed aside on the advice of the captains of commerce? Suicide rates among farming communities on account of indebtedness and other economic hardships have not fallen. And this under major irrigation, mind you! Need I say more? Maybe I can add those magic, silencing, words, "Cost of Living".

We don’t have to worry about Prabhakaran, actually. Our territorial integrity has been compromised by complete capitulation to "globalisation" in its present form. Our sovereignty has been pawned off to capital interests operating through the World Bank and the IMF. And most recently, the PA signed an agreement with the ADB whereby the control of our fauna and flora would be given over to private interests. What they are planning to do with Sinharaja and the rest of our forest cover through the Tropical Forest Conservation Act of the USA is tragic. The mere consideration of such an agreement ought to deserve summary arrest of these so-called leaders for treason.

Wimal Weerawansa claims that the JVP had to perform a hardha sethkama (heart-surgery) on the PA. I believe this is giving the PA too much credit, for it is patently clear that the PA does not have a heart. Makes me wonder what the JVP was operating on!

Let me conclude with some comments on the afore-mentioned political fascination with the SLFP and its corporeality. The SLFP has always had a Bandaranaike "head". This is almost a cardinal tenet of its party ideology. There has almost been a musical head-change game being played in that party. From Banda to his wife, Mrs. B to Anura (after she lost her civic rights), back to Mrs. B, then to Chandrika and now Anura being consecrated as the heir apparent, apparently, until.....hmmm...maybe until Vimukthi or Yasodhara feel it’s time to partake of the family fortune.

It is high time that people understand that there is no way that this kavanda-hisa business would be resolved. It is high time that this political body is put out of his misery. There is no "head" around that will fit this diseased body. The kindest thing would be to do the necessary beheading, politically speaking. The sooner this is done the better for all of us.