Enigma of Basil’s importance

All of a sudden there has been a chorus of approvals by some MPs of the ruling party calling for Basil Rajapaksa, currently Special Representative of the President and Head of the Presidential Task Force on Economic Revival and Poverty Eradication, to become a Member of Parliament on the National List. Some of his loyalists are willing to give up their seats in Parliament for this great welcome back to Basil. It is widely reported that he is to be given the nerve centre portfolios of Economic Development and Finance of Sri Lanka, once he is allowed to enter Parliament and become a Member of the Cabinet.

His supporters in Parliament declare that once Basil Rajapaksa takes over the Economic Development of Sri Lanka, all the problems, that beset this island besieged by mounting debt traps, foreign exchange crisis, balance of payments and budget deficits, rising unemployment and poverty, pandemic growth and spread, trade deficits, human/elephant conflict, fertiliser/agricultural sector woes, environment devastation, destruction of marine life, pollution and fisheries livelihoods, spiraling costs of living, energy crisis and, etc., would be all sorted out by his Midas Touch of expertise and efficiency.

Considering the Great Expectations in store and the enormity of the task, the public would do well to examine the background, qualifications and performance of this worthy, lest we either overestimate or undermine his supposed capacity and acumen for this vital task of Mr. Fix It. Whatever it is!

It may be reasonable for the people to examine the facts of the case relating to this prospective VIP appointment and selectivity in respect of Basil Rajapaksa. He is the younger brother of the President and the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. In the absence of any specific academic or professional credentials for the post, it is presumably due to family ties that he took over the Task Force on Economic Revival and Poverty Eradication last year. The question is whether with so much of leadership authority given to him already by his two brothers, there has been any appreciable improvement in the socio-economic sphere due to his leadership to date?

On the contrary, despite his prominent role as advisor to the President and Head of the Presidential Task Force on Economic Revival and Poverty Eradication nearly a year ago, the country seems to have gone into a vortex of cataclysmic blunders and plunders too numerous to relate. These range from the rape of the forest cover in Sinharaja, the wetlands, the systematic appropriation of state lands circumventing legislation to be distributed at will to business groups via the District Secretaries, the Fertiliser fiasco, the mounting Covid-19 pandemic that allowed the deaths to grow from a mere 10 to 3000 owing to bungling of Covid Prevention and Protection policies, etc.

In this context, even his previous track record and experience as National List Minister, Advisor, and elected Minister, holding Cabinet Portfolio as Minister of Economic Development in the Rajapaksa government during 2007 – 2014, shows a pendulum shift of the People rejecting the Mahinda Chinthanaya government for a subsequent yahapalanaya, that subsequently betrayed their trust as well! In this instance, too, history may have a record of repeating itself at the next election, considering the widespread discontent and indignation of the masses at the present mayhem in governance and civil life.

The people should be wary of bold declarations and assumptions made by a few acolytes, who claim the strategic coordinating and organisational abilities of their Master Basil Rajapaksa; who is supposedly the mastermind behind the unification of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the formation of political alliances with other parties to form a stable government. Power Politics is for politicians and their stooges. What the people of this country want is a wise, honest and professional leadership, to address the myriad problems of this country and deliver result-oriented solutions and deliverables across the urban and rural divide, in an equitable manner. Certainly, skills and strategies of political machinations towards wresting power from its opponents’ is of the least interest to the people.

In that case, we should consider whether the prospective return of Basil Rajapaksa to the arena of finance and economic development, is chiefly to celebrate the fact it was only very recently that he and three others working under him when he was Minister of Economic Development in the last decade, were acquitted and released by the Colombo High Court in the case filed over the misappropriation of public funds to distribute roofing sheets during the run up to the 2015 Presidential Election. The Divineguma case was filed by the Attorney General against Former Minister of Economic Development Basil Rajapaksa, and a number of officials working under him, including his former Ministry Secretary, ex-Director-General and Deputy DG of the Divineguma Development Department Kithsiri Ranawaka. for committing offences punishable under the Offences against Public Property Act, under five separate indictments for the criminal misappropriation of funds from the Divineguma Development Department. An overseas travel ban that was imposed concurrently to the case in hand was also lifted by the High Court. Another salutary move on the part of the government contributing to the rising star of Basil Rajapaksa, was the notable exception in retaining the controversial dual citizenship clause of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which amended the other three Public Interest issues. Dual citizens such as Basil Rajapaksa, who owe allegiance as citizens of both Sri Lanka and USA therefore can now hold public office.

Basil Rajapaksa was under investigation for corruption and abuse of state assets until last year. In 2016, the court ordered authorities to auction a luxury villa and 6.5 ha (16 acres) of land in Malwana. His hasty departure to his other home in the USA upon the defeat of his brother at the presidential election is inscribed indelibly in the minds of those who have long memories. Setting the context is another revelation in Parliament in April this year when JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, has highlighted the highly suspect conduct and performance of the Presidential Commission on Political Victimisation, and the highly arbitrary and manner in which it exonerated certain persons associated with the President and his family.

The enigma of the importance of popular political personalities like Basil Rajapaksa must after all be subject to the dictates of our Socialist Democratic Republic and its vibrant relatively free media, that we must continue to uphold as our liberty and defence, against all odds and abuses.

According to John Adams, founding father and 2nd President of the USA, we the people of this country “have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge — I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers.” Therefore, the ultimate ascendancy of personalities must rest on the knowledge of their character and conduct acquired by the people of this country, whatever be the magical or meteorite properties assigned to them by their sycophant followers.

SONALI WIJERATNE

Kotte