By Rohana R. Wasala

Continued from  Friday, February 7, 2025

Since the JVP/NPP’s arbitrary decision to curtail former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s security and have him relocated to less expensive accommodation is now being legally challenged through an FR petition lodged with the Supreme Court in Colombo, nothing  more needs to be said here about it. What I am doing here instead is to express a personal opinion for what it is worth, about something that is of utmost national importance. The interests of the country (nation) matter more than those of individual politicians or political parties. That is why inclusive nationalism (not ethnonationalism or racism) is vital at this juncture. It is an open secret now that almost all our leaders, with a few honourable exceptions, are being led by the nose by foreign powers (at loggerheads with each other, pursuing their own respective national interests) as Sri Lanka is located in a geostrategically sensitive point in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Our response to the inevitable aggression that we have no choice but to face should not be politicised within the country. As a patriotic senior Sri Lankan living outside Sri Lanka with absolutely no stake in its current affairs or future prospects, I earnestly request all the MPs and the President with due respect to ponder on the useful implications of what I have just stated. It is their responsibility to look after the people/country (‘raja dhamma paja rakkha’ (the ruler’s duty is to protect the people) through wise statecraft  at home and suave diplomacy abroad.

To return to my subject, the question why probably the NPP is going after Mahinda Rajapaksa, though not a mystery, remains to be considered. I hope that this will not be misconstrued as propaganda for Mahinda Rajapaksa who, I believe, is politically ‘out of combat’ because of his advanced age, and should now be in quiet retirement. His significance, though, as the foremost champion of nationalist politics has not diminished yet. Out of the five living past presidents, Mahinda Rajapaksa, when in power, was recognised as the most authentic face of Sri Lankan nationhood. He cut an imposing figure on the world stage. In accordance with usual diplomatic protocols, top level foreign state visitors still regularly pay him courtesy calls. Foreign ambassadors resident in Sri Lanka have formal goodwill meetings with him occasionally. As he wrote in an X post, he had a meeting with Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha on February 5, 2025.

I never hero-worshipped Mahinda Rajapaksa. Quite a number of my articles that I wrote as a nonprofessional newspaper columnist, especially those written over the past eighteen years (2007-2025) and published in The Island and elsewhere, bear testimony to this. I have criticised Mahinda Rajapaksa more than I have praised him. I always offered constructive criticism of his  politics, both when he was in power and when he was in the opposition. 

My criticism of Mahinda Rajapaksa was basically  focused on three areas: what I saw as his family-bandyism or nepotism (giving his own sons,siblings and other kith and kin priority in his public/political life, often to the disadvantage of more deserving others), his harmful, unnecessarily secretive approach to wooing the support  of the minorities while taking the loyalty of the Sinhalese Buddhist majority, his main support base, for granted, and his lenient treatment of some of his closest associates who were up to no good.This made me describe him once as ‘a flawed diamond’ (a borrowed metaphor that surfaced from the depths of my ancient literary memory). More recently though, I found myself using such pejorative adjectives as ‘ruinous’ and ‘rascally’ in reference to the Rajapaksas, for squandering, as I believe, the benefits that accrued to the nation from the  heroic victory of 2009 over separatist terrorism. That it was a national victory that would not have materialised but for the invaluable contributions of the Rajapaksas is a different matter. 

The barefaced geopolitical meddling that intensified after the end of terrorism in 2009, seriously undermining the stability of unitary Sri Lanka, according to my understanding, was greatly facilitated by the three  blunders mentioned above that MR could have avoided had he had enough foresight to keep in check his ego-propelled dynastic ambitions. It looked as if his concern for the youth of the country didn’t go beyond his own sons and nephews. He never wanted to allow someone outside his family to succeed him. Had he at least made Maithreepala Sirisena premier (instead of  the late D.M. Jayarathne, even then a doddering old man) in 2010, the disastrous upset of 2015 would not have come about so easily (though engineered from outside).

The ‘baiyas’, who are ready to forget and forgive their old champion for services done, will not take kindly to the NPP for harassing him. If there are plausible allegations of financial or other crimes against him and his family, let them be investigated and let them face the full force of the law. But mere unsubstantiated allegations should not be bruited about as political propaganda against them. This is what I emphasised in a column under the title Prosecute, but don’t persecute” published in The Island on May 28, 2015 (that is, almost ten years ago). Who might want him persecuted? His political opponents and those who are baying for Mahinda Rajapaksa’s and his brother GR’s blood for defeating separatist terrorism, who seem to be allies now.  

Let’s now turn to his would-be nemesis Anura Kumara Dissanayake. At the last presidential election held on September 21, 2024, as the leader of the Jathika Jana Balavegaya (JJB) alliance, popularly known as the Malimawa, Anura Kumara Dissanayake was declared winner after obtaining just over 42% of the total votes cast across the country. He beat his nearest rival Sajith Premadasa, leader of the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB), who was supported by only about 33% of the national electorate. But the important thing is that  there was little for AKD to crow about in this victory. Had it not been for the split between Sajith Premadasa and his former boss Ranil Wickremasinghe the leader of the almost defunct United National Party (UNP) that he left to form the SJB, Anura Kumara Dissanayake would hardly have become president. (I have criticised both Ranil Wickremasinghe and Sajith Premadasa, too, while admiring some of their personal attributes, as I did in ‘A role for Sajith and UNP ginger group’ published in The Island/August 28, 2019).

Let’s also remember the fact that AKD’s presidential win on September 21, 2024 and the Malimawa’s seemingly impressive performance at the subsequent parliamentary election held on November 14, 2024 were heavily qualified by certain factors that render both successful outcomes (i.e., Malimawa’s presidential and electoral victories) seem accidental, i.e., they are not truly representative of the significant asymmetries of public opinion between regions and communities, for it is probable that the different racial and religious communities that voted for the Malimaawa expect different things from the NPP government in return. The Malimaawa win seemed almost an electoral aberration.

The wild promises made by the JVP/NPP for getting elected were probably nonchalantly exaggerated due to their unstated private assumption that they were not going to face the hazard of being required to deliver on those promises, as they never expected to win with such a massive majority. For example, what did the Malimawa promise the voters in the North and East, who are predominantly Tamil speaking ethnic Tamils and Muslims respectively, not forgetting the Sinhalese minority living with them, to win their collective support? Were these promises identical with what the Malimawans pledged before the ethnically mixed population in the rest of the country where the Sinhala speakers form the overwhelming majority? Did the Malimawa politicians work to bring about a uniform and consensual awareness of their principal electoral platform of fighting endemic corruption among politicians and bureaucrats, and what they have erroneously identified as ‘the atrocious legacy of the past 76 years’ (alleged wrong policies and corrupt practices of politicians in power in the post-independence period to date)? Do these Malimawans believe that their approach to the first and their specific conception of the second are being accepted and embraced by the average citizens in every part of the country with equal conviction and enthusiasm? 

To be concluded