Wednesday 20th March, 2024

Newly-appointed COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises) Chairman and SLPP MP, Rohitha Abeygunawardena, has threatened legal action against JVP Propaganda Secretary and MP, Vijitha Herath, for making what he calls a defamatory statement about him in public. The JVP has dared Abeygunawardena to carry out his threat so that it can prove its allegations against him in court. Such searing verbal battles are not uncommon among Sri Lankan politicians, who trade accusations and abuse liberally, but never go all out to throw one another behind bars.

The JVP has demanded that an investigation be conducted to ascertain how MP Abeygunawardena has acquired his wealth. This call must have struck a responsive chord with the public, but Abeygunawardena should not be singled out; all other politicians who live like oil sheiks must be made to account for their assets. Most of them have amassed colossal amounts of wealth despite their humble beginnings. Politics has been their El Dorado.

Similarly, all political parties ought to disclose their assets of their own volition. They claim to uphold transparency, which is conspicuous by its absence concerning the acquisition of their assets. Will the JVP, which has taken the moral high ground, care to set an example to others by disclosing how much it has received as campaign funds, etc., both here and overseas, during the past two decades or so, and name the donors? That is the way the JVP can disprove its critics’ claim that it has mislaid its moral compass for political expediency.

The numerous progeny of Sri Lankan politicians not only live the high life but also indulge in a vulgar display of opulence. Their palatial houses remind us of Coleridge’s poetic description of the pleasure dome built in Xanadu according to the decree of Kubla Khan. They have the chutzpah to circulate via social media videos of their fairy-tale weddings, designer clothes and wrist watches, exhilarating water jetpack rides and epicurean feasts, etc., in ritzy holiday resorts overseas while the ordinary Sri Lankans are struggling to dull the pangs of hunger. They have never made an honest living, as is public knowledge, and it is obvious that they are living off their parents’ ill-gotten wealth. Their assets have never been probed. Maithripala Sirisena promised to do so in respect of one political family, duped the public and achieved his presidential dream in 2015. Subsequently, he opted to ride on the saatakas of the Rajapaksas!

SJB MP Eran Wickramaratne and several other Opposition lawmakers have resigned from the COPE in protest against Abeygunawardena’s appointment at issue. Their revulsion is understandable. But the question is whether the current SJB MPs, who as members of the Yahapalana government (2015-2019), defended the perpetrators of the Treasury bond scams to the hilt, have any moral right to condemn others for corruption? These holier-than-thou politicians stooped so low as to prevent the first COPE report on the bond scams from being made public ahead of the 2015 general election, and some of them, went on to dilute the second COPE report on the Treasury bond scams by having a slew of footnotes incorporated thereinto. After the UPFA’s pullout from the Yahapalana government in October 2018, the JVP and the TNA propped up the corrupt UNP government, enabling Ranil Wickremesinghe to retain the premiership!

A recent opinion survey has revealed a sharp drop in public trust in Parliament. This is something to be expected. Politicians in power indulge in helping themselves to public wealth, and the integrity of most of their Opposition counterparts is only a lack of opportunity to do likewise.

It gladdens one’s heart beyond measure to see tainted government politicians writhe under scathing attacks from their political rivals. However, the Opposition worthies who demonise the likes of Abeygunawardena in an attempt to portray themselves as paragons of virtue cannot conceal their cloven hooves under the veneer of self-righteousness.