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Chandrika's Attempts To Re-Enter Sri Lankan Politics~An Objective Perspective About Why It Should be Prevented!

Sunil Kumara ~ World Council Of Sinhala Peers For LankaWeb ~ July 26th 2006

She held sway for eleven painful years, turned the Nation's economy and sense of well being topsy turvy, was not even close to being the astute policymaker her late mother was and at times aided by a somewhat indulgent and blinkered sibling who believed that political power was a chess game one indulged in at the expense of a Sovereign Nation as much as his sister did and virtually used her mandate to disrupt many aspects of National patriotism whether inadvertently or not which the Sinhala Nation holds sacred and went about being the nation's leader with an air of impetuous high theatrics which was probably instilled into her by acclaimed screen actor and late husband with whom she launched her political career who probably had a better sense of conceptual politics for which he paid the ultimate price at the hands of his envious and apprehensive enemies some of whom too eventually paid the same price.

So what in the world is Madam Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga contemplating if as reported she intends to return to mainstream politics in Sri Lanka? To stir the cauldron of uncertainty further within Sri Lanka towards where the nation is headed while the ever circumspect Tamil tigers envisioning elimination await in the shadows for further redemption now that their main sustenance from the Sinhala camp, the likes of the Jayalath Jayawardenas and the Ranil Wickremasinghes have been rendered ineffective? A cruel surmission undoubtedly but a necessary one where no individual with a conciliatory streak by way of track record towards the LTTE terrorists can be tolerated in any capacity within the Sri Lankan Administrative infrastructure which is what it would be tantamount to should CBK re-enter the Sri Lankan political arena short of being a disaster towards Sri Lankan posterity!

Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge (CBK) may be packing her bags to return to Sri Lanka in order to stage a come back to politics which to all intents and purposes may be wishful thinking on her part unless she can offer a remedy to the ills and woes she left behind during her exit from politics but having shown her true colours as someone who dearly loves to cling to political power for the perks only rather than the best interests of the nation, has in all probabilities disentitled her chances of a real comeback. Her decision however seems to be of considerable interest to political analysts and a ravenous media ever ready for a feeding frenzy which has resulted in an amazing turnaround of speculative energy.They have already begun to forecast her future political course towards a new revival as reported recently almost in a tone of chagrined anxiety by a popular features writer from Australia but probably has the same chances of revival as does a damp squib after being exposed to a heavy rainshower and sad will be the day if this contentious individual ever manages to wriggle through all protocols to regain her once powerful status which she misused to the ultimate!

Her modus operandi, given the consideration that neither the position of President nor Prime Minister is within her access rationally, could revolve around the impassed Peace Agreement which she more than complicated towards disintegration during her tenure as President with her complacencies towards the LTTE as well as a platform of constitutional reform which she never realistically implemented during her tenure as much as her professed plan to discontinue the Executive Presidency which she was accused of misusing and mismanaging for the length of her tenure over a decade in collaboration with an uncle who was granted excessive albeit undeserving military power whose excesses and botched policies are now history and if this is her strongest claim to re-entering politics it becomes a very dubious attempt on her part as the querstion will be asked by the more discerning as well as the more authoritative"How is she going to accomplish it, where will she get the mandate for it and who is going to believe her?" And woe be unto the general voting public as well as Sri lanka if by their misjudgement if they decide to once again surge sentimentally towards a pipe dream which once was and the illussion of Matriarch which falsely projected their franchise and a worst case scenario despite its speculative nature!abd in the simplest of terms a NO NO!

In her attempt to re-enter the political spectrum of Sri Lanka she will undoubtedly begin by denigrating the present leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksha which has had its fair share of criticism from his adversaries as well as his allies which she tried covertly to accomplish on many an occassion herself without success where to her advantage perhaps Mahinda Rajapaksha, based on his track record upto the present has left himself open to much criticism in how he has handled National Security and many doubts about his inadvertent attempts to virtually collude with the LTTE through prevaricating on imperative issues but if these are factors which Mame. Kumaratunga expects to use to her advantage she might as well forget it as they were almost identically mirrored by he during her tenure which the Sinhala Nation is not likely to forget in a hurry! Furthermore she has to manouver herself in to a position of acceptable responsibility which she will find difficult or near impossible to accomplish through the sheer dubious nature of her final years where she all but compromised her integrity through the course of actions used to cling to power and a sad legacy to leave behind as an departing President.

There is much speculation that she will also attempt to play on the theme that the Bandaranaike dynasty is a God Given attribute to the Nation which she probably assumes the Sri Lankan people have come to accept as the ultimate consensus in a nationalistic sense to which there is no alternative and that no underdog from the Rajapaksha clan ( politically impressive at best if the realities were viewed objectively) could ever replace which will probably be the undoing of her attempt to gain any political clout and could face the ultimate rejection and what seems to be in the best interests of the Nation!

If ever there are similarities between the Bandaranaikes and Rajapakshas relative to the present leadership one can attribute a strong sense of pragmatism which both sides presented which Mme. Kumaratunga's late father SWRD Bandaranaike vehemently and dedicatedly upheld and probably paid the ultimate price for whereas the Rajapaksha pragmatism seems to know when to apply the brakes in time to contend with reality and in his own best interest as well as that of the nation. Perhaps the present leadership judging by some of his latent responses is beginning to realise when to cast pragmatism aside in favour of affirmative action in dealing with national issues and something which he has indicated somewhat dilutedly and a contention any aspiring competitor to his throne needs to be aware of albeit unrelated perhaps to the target Mme Kumaratunga is aiming at beyond an attempt at regaining lost ground politically through ursurping the image and charisma of the President far emoved from her own which she sullied through personal insecurities and selfish motivations as did some of her predecessors.

As unfortunate as it sounds, Mme.Kumaratunga should never be permitted access to any further participation in the Sri Lankan political arena for the simple reason that her policies are ungainly, unpredictable and are directed by many whims and fancies which even persons close to her have suspected as those arrived upon while being disillussioned, deluded and in circumstances which prevent rational thinking and her departure from Sri Lankan politics was the best thing that happened to the nation!

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