Challenge to SJB and JVP

By Fr. Chryso Pieris SJ

The SJB rally was memorable. Police obstructions at roads leading to Colombo was a favour done to the Opposition. The government in desperation and confusion is kicking into its own goal.

Obviously, this is a failed government in spite of 6.9 million people supporting it. They reversed practically every gazette they issued. Every deal the government has put through, Kerawalapitiya, Nano nitrogen, Chinese fertiliser, sugar, garlic and rice are scams. They are not lawmakers; they are daylight robbers. It is time to reverse the government itself and have a new government.

The memorable rally of the SJB is really not the result of the hard work of the SJB but rather of the mismanagement and thievery of the government. The Opposition has nothing to do. Like a ripe fruit, the government will simply fall into the lap of the Opposition.

By now, even the 6.9 million morons have realised that the current professional politician of Sri Lanka is a scoundrel. Ranjan Ramanayake has openly, and in public, said that they are all friends, together stealing the wealth of the country. Naturally, all at Diyawannawa are happy he is still in jail. That is what ‘Ali Baba and the 225 thieves’ mean and they hide behind the ‘Thattu Maru’ fraudulent democracy. We need a system change. We need to change this klepto-system.

The SJB is trying to project an image of themselves as new born babies; clean, pure and spotless. The JVP claims they are even cleaner than the SJB. But we know better. Just like thieves their rejected candidates have crept into Parliament through the fraud of a national list.

And that is a base insult to the people’s sovereignty. There is no need to list out the footnote gang and car permit sale, we know who they are.

In case this tottering corrupt government crashes, and there may be an election, we want 100 percent certainty about the honesty and integrity of the Opposition. We invite the Opposition to sign an agreement with the People. It will be drafted by brilliant lawyers and eminent people of integrity. It will be such a strong document that it will be accepted as a legally binding instrument, even in an international court. (For we hardly trust our courts any longer.)

The agreement will be their promises to the people. For the last 40 years, all the parties had been promising to abolish the Executive Presidency. But they lied and lied. So we want them to promise this time, in black and white, in a legally binding instrument, that they will abolish the Executive Presidency within a stipulated time frame. (In a few months not years!)

That is the first promise we need from them.

They always say they are the servants of the people. They proclaim with their hands on their hearts that they have come to serve the people. Servants cannot be better than their masters. The people are the masters of these servants. Then how come politicians are better fed, better clothed and better housed than their masters, the people? Therefore, henceforward, let their lifestyles proclaim their servant-hood by slashing their pensions and other perks. The second promise will be abolishing the pensions of the MPs after five years in Parliament, not only for the present, and the future, but retroactively up to JR. That is the first part of the second promise. The second part will be abolishing the selling of all permits, for cars, wine stores and petrol sheds. The third part is the abolishing of either the monthly salary or the attendance allowance. Nobody in the country gets a monthly salary and an allowance for coming to work!

Let Parliament be a House of lawmakers and not a den of thieves! The third promise is not to interfere in the civil administration and the judiciary of the country. The civil administration knows their onions. Every subject is now highly advanced technically, and specialised. The last two years have shown, by the reversal of gazettes, how ignorant and foolish politicians are. They interfere to grab commissions and bribes for themselves and their cronies. They intervene to free themselves and their cronies from court cases and jail sentences, even from the gallows!

The fourth important promise will be that they will pass a law that a person is allowed to be an MP only for two terms or 10 years. Because it is truly a service to the nation; the nation should not take advantage of their generosity and make them slave and waste away their lives in serving the nation. With gratitude they must be returned to their families and professions to enjoy their private lives in peace.

These are a few of the essential promises they must sign to prove their sincerity. Once

SJB the or,the JVP declare their intention, in public, of signing such a document, of proclaiming and proving their honesty and integrity; the lawyers will draft a document for study by them.

It will be given to the public, too; transparency is essential. The final document will be signed in public (At the Independence Square?) in front of the people.

Will the SJB and the JVP have the guts and the grit to take the bull by the horns and get their members to back such a brave, history-making decision? Or will they pretend not to have even heard of such a suggestion and slyly slither away to avoid all responsibility and accountability to the people? We shall wait and see.