Divide and rule

Tuesday 24th January, 2023

The SLPP-UNP government is sparing no expenses in celebrating what the country does not have—independence. It is doing so while appealing for debt restructuring and aid. The GMOA (Government Medical Officers’ Association) has revealed that the National Hospital, Colombo, is experiencing a severe shortage of medicines. Many are the children who faint in schools, unable to bear the pangs of hunger. People are skipping meals. The colony of leeches (read the Cabinet) continues to expand. The government politicians and their kith and kin are living high life, and there is hardly anything they baulk at doing to consolidate their hold on power and feather their nests. While wrapping themselves in the flag and boasting of ‘75 years of independence’, they are employing the same modus operandi as the British imperialists to compass their ends. They have adopted the political maxim, divide and rule.

The Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe regime is all out to stir up bitter dissension and rivalries within the institutions that act as a countervailing force against it. It considers anyone who dares speak truth to power an enemy. It has not given up trying to delay the local government (LG) elections. President Ranil Wickremesinghe himself claimed recently that the Election Commission (EC) was divided on the timing of the LG polls to be held. The EC dismissed his claim and accepted deposits and nominations for the mini polls, which, it has said, will be held on 09 March. Now, some pettifoggers pretending to be law scholars, thanks to whose advice President Gotabaya Rajapaksa suffered a painful pratfall, are peddling an argument that the EC has not made a unanimous decision and therefore the announcement of the date of elections lacks legal validity! It behoves the EC to counter such arguments and put the matter to rest lest the people should lose interest in the LG polls.

The Executive in this country is like a juggernaut careening downhill. It poses a threat to other branches of government and all democratic institutions. All Executive Presidents, since 1978, have meddled with the legislature and tried to interfere in the affairs of the judiciary. Incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s uncle, President J. R. Jayewardene even defended a gang of goons that stoned the houses of the Supreme Court judges, who refused to give in to political pressure, about three decades ago. The Executive Presidents have also reduced the Attorney General’s Department to a mere appendage of the government in power, and adopted measures such as manipulating the electoral process to further their interests by either advancing or postponing elections. This despicable practice must end.

The government has already succeeded in dividing the PUCSL (Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka), which opposed its latest bid to exploit the public further by effecting another huge power tariff hike. Some members of the PUCSL have turned against their Chairman. The EC has acted valiantly amidst mounting political pressure. But a shameless regime that fears elections will pull out all the stops to delay the LG polls. It is bound to use the newly-ratified election expenditure regulation Bill for that purpose. It knows more than one way to shoe a horse. Having ruined the economy, it is trying to use the country’s financial woes as an excuse for denying the people their right to vote. It is determined to do to the EC what Caesar did to Gaul, and one can only hope that the EC members will remain united.

The judiciary is the only hope for the hapless citizens who are going through hell for no fault of theirs and are likely to be deprived of their franchise as well.