Monday 18th December, 2023

The SLPP’s second national convention on Friday (15) was a soft launch of its next election campaign, presidential or parliament, to all intents and purposes. The presidential election will have to be held next year, and there is no way the government can postpone it. President Ranil Wickremesinghe himself told Parliament the other day that the next presidential and parliamentary elections would be conducted in 2024, followed by the Provincial Council and local government polls in 2025. All political parties have therefore gone into overdrive to mobilise popular support with an eye to next year’s national elections. The SLPP must have expected to shore up its image, or what remains thereof, with the help of Friday’s show, which however fell short of the target.

Founded in 2016 as an alternative to the SLFP, which joined the Yahapalana government, the SLPP had a meteoric rise. In May 2017, it together with the Joint Opposition led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, held a mammoth May Day rally at the Galle Face Green, which it turned into a sea of heads. It trounced the Yahapalana government at the local government polls held the following year, and went on to win the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

It mustered a two-thirds majority in Parliament in its heyday, and nobody expected the people to turn against it, the way they did last year. Ironically, the cradle of anti-government protesters’ struggle or Aragalaya was the Galle Face Green itself. Today, it’s the SLPP’s ‘hay day’, so to speak; its leaders and rank and file had bundles of hay (as well as grass) greeting them on the way to their party’s second national convention, on Friday, courtesy the anti-government activists. The people who turned violent last year and attacked the properties of the SLPP politicians have opted to ridicule the government members and their backers in a non-violent manner.

The Rajapaksas and their acolytes seem to think they will be able to take the people for a ride again. On Friday, they sought to arouse nationalism and lionise themselves; they said they had saved the country from terrorism and were capable of winning future elections and forming a stable government. Basil Rajapaksa went to the extent of issuing a veiled threat to the political rivals of the Rajapaksas.

He said those who hurled stones at lions had to be mindful of the consequences of their action, implying that the Rajapaksas and their backers were lions, and they would get even with their political enemies. (He seems to have forgotten that he and his brothers headed for the hills last year, fearing the irate public.) Curiously, having made boastful claims at Friday’s convention, Basil resigned as the National Organiser of the SLPP. Is it that he himself does not believe in his own rhetoric?

Grass and hay metonymically represent cattle, and those who hung them in public places on Friday did so to liken the SLPP politicians and their supporters to bovines. The organisers of that grass-hay protest may consider themselves very smart, and they are reportedly on cloud nine because the bundles of fodders became a social media sensation, but in our book, theirs was a reprehensible act, to say the least, and they must be ashamed of causing such affronts to innocents. Why should the cattle be insulted by being compared to the SLPP politicians and their backers?

Bovines are very useful to humans, as is public knowledge; they pull heavy loads, help plough fields and give milk without expecting anything in return. They are an invaluable asset to the farming community, unlike the ruling party politicians who have ruined the agricultural sector and inflicted immense suffering on farmers as well as others.

So, it is nothing but unfair to compare a bunch of corrupt, greedy, parasitic politicians to them. Similarly, the lions would be offended if they were aware of attempts being made in some quarters to liken a pack of rejected crooked politicians to them.Let the government and the Opposition be urged to stop insulting poor animals.