04 December 2021
Governor or Administrator?
["the Opposition must
understand this situation. Due to mismanagement and blotches during their five
years in power, citizens elected me as the new President of Sri Lanka. But the
behaviour of the Opposition is deplorable. Today, the Opposition behaves as if
they were not in power for the past five years! This state of affairs must
change for the betterment of the country." ] President Gotabaya Rajapaksa –
as reported by Dr. Tilak S. Fernando through Ceylon Today
According
to Dr Fernando ‘He was not a politician but an administrator. During his
tenure, as the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development from
2005 to 2015, under the administration of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he
demonstrated his mettle. His decisions managed to finish the thirty-year
terrorist war and helped to crumble the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
that waged a guerrilla war for thirty years, fighting for an independent
homeland for Tamils in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka’
Was
the president’s response to the Opposition as a Politician or as an Administrator? A politician by belief becomes a Governor to
those who elected her/him. Such a
politician does not need Administrative / Executive powers. The political
belief of the whole is determined by the belief of the independent Opposition. Any vote above
that requires express administrative powers to be reliable and unharmful to a
true citizen. The additional Administrative powers through the 20th Amendment to the Sri Lankan
Constitution, confirm this ‘gap’ as recognized by the current President.
In his Counter
Currents article ‘High Time for
USA and UK to live up to their commitments’ – Dr
Thambu Kanagasabai
states:
[President Gotabaya Rajapakshe’s statement on
November 24, 2021 to the public is alarming and is an ominous sign of
entrenchment of the Rajapakshe family dictatorial rule. In his statement, he “Threatened
to abolish all rights of those who are shouting, if that is what you ask
for I will give it to you”]
If the President did make that statement then he was taking the position of Christian
leader who said ‘ask and it shall be given you. But that same leader said also ‘seek
and you shall find; knock and It shall be opened unto you. In democracy the
three are:
Politics, Administration and self-governance. As
per the President’s statement as alleged by a Tamil law expert – it was
politics and hence the citizens needed to ‘ask’. Otherwise the President would
have said ‘knock and I will open the door’.
There was not enough governance power in Mr
Gotabaya Rajapaksa to give such assurance. Hence he reverted to his preliminary
position as an elected politician and needed to find the right law to progress
to governorship.
As per Dr.
Tilak S. Fernando :
[There
was another aspect in his election promises to make Sri Lanka free from
poisonous food intake. He openly declared that he would stop importing toxic
fertiliser and replace it with Carbonic manure. However, as Ven. Muruththetuwe
Ananda Thera exposed in the 'Derana 360' programme, President Gotabaya
Rajapaksa was misinformed by his advice-givers about the ban of importing toxic
fertiliser suddenly.
The
consensus of every farmer and many erudite professionals is that farmers should
have given a specific time for adaptation, say at least from next Kanne! It
made farmers stage protests all over the country, and in some areas, farmers
invited the President to come and see for himself. This has caused the
Government as unwarranted head-ache! The respected monk did not want to expose
the names of the President's advisers on TV, but said he is prepared to name
those who ill-advised him if the President makes a personal request to the
Venerable Thera to do so. Nevertheless, none of the farmers in the south is
making a fuss about switching over to carbonic fertiliser. Still, only a
section from Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa districts are staging protests!
An accusing finger directs at the Minister for the inadequacy in the
importation of fertiliser, and the officials who oversee manure distribution.]
The
emotionally driven tend to express through ‘attitudes’ rather than objective
analyses. Hence it they have dissatisfaction over one issue and there is a
protest by farmers they would joint the farmers. Polonnaruwa for example is a
farming district . It is also the electorate of the former President of Sri
Lanka – Mr Maithripala Sirisena who caused the Constitutional crisis which led
to chaos in Parliamentary order.
If as
stated above by Dr Fernando ‘His
decisions managed to finish the thirty-year terrorist war and helped to crumble
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that waged a guerrilla war for
thirty years, fighting for an independent homeland for Tamils in Northern and
Eastern Sri Lanka’ – then as per Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s mind, he
eliminated the LTTE and not his brother Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa who was then President.
Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was then not a governor even by position. When he became
President, Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa reduced his governing power and converted it
to Administrative power which needs strong opposition to be governing power of
the whole of Sri Lanka.
Out
of that Opposition – a good proportion were farmers elevated by the LTTE. In
2006 when I went to Kilinochchi to leave my brother in law in Yoga Swami Home –
I noticed the poster with a child farmer and a child-soldier – the former
carrying a plough and the latter a rifle. When I asked the tuk-tuk driver – he said
the farmer had to work for the soldier to carry the gun to protect the land.
That confirmed the place of farmers in the LTTE hierarchy. Hence when the
farmer is demoted below the soldier by the President – the natural credits of his
Opposition go up. Likewise in Polonnaruwa district. Hence they became the cause
of his fall in status.
Administration
helps us to limit the area of our authority – which was high while Mr Gotabaya
Rajapaksa was in the army. His brother’s governance power gave him the natural
protection from civilians. But he has abandoned this by taking advice from
American Sinhalese who are the parallels of Tamil Diaspora leaders without a vote
in Sri Lanka. The exercise of the vote is the first step to sharing our
governance power with fellow voters. Those who are no longer citizens of Sri
Lanka – do not have the right to vote. They have to win the confidence of those
who do have the Sri Lankan vote. Otherwise they are limited to advisory roles
or Administrative roles such as the one Mr Gotabaya Rajapaksa took as Defence
Secretary. Dual citizenship works to limit the governing power – where the two nations
are of different structures. By declaring non-cooperation with UNHRC – President
Gotabaya Rajapaksa confirmed the separation from the USA and UK. By blaming the
UNP – he lost further power of democracy and has embraced hardship.
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