Hope that lies in the Pandora Box

The Pandora Papers have moved away from the focus of politics and the fight against corruption.

We can await the report of the Bribery and Corruption Commission, which has its own way of giving innocence to the guilty; much more than the fighters against corruption ever expect. But that is the stuff of Saubhagya.

The Pandora Papers (PP) have also shown the great delight of Nirupama Rajapaksa – Nadesan, in settling down with her children in London. That is just one big success story of the PP. There will be much more success to follow from the PP, with the Rajapaksa politics moving on to bigger dominance in this Siri Lankava, running in circles of disaster to find foreign exchange, despite the big promises of the Central Bank’s Nivard Cabraal.

It was far away from the PP that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa admitted with courage, of his and the government’s failure to keep up with the promises given to the people and the country. His words at an important military ceremony, where he was proudly draped in a civilian suit, and played some cricket, too, were rich with reality. It was not only him, but all Ministers and Members of Parliament that should accept this failure, he said.

Those words were the stuff of a President, who after nearly two years in office and power, decided to tell the people of the realities of governance.

What these words revealed were not the stuff of the PP. but the very stuff of the Pandora Box. It was the box from which all the evil flew out, when opened by Pandora herself. The President and the Government are certainly the victims today of the Pandora Evil, which is far beyond the great expectations of the Saubhagye Dekma.

The government is just now in a great Pandora Dance. With the removal of all gazette notifications on the price of essentials, it is certainly free of the burdens of price control and support for the people. This began with the new prices of rice. It is not a Gotabaya achievement, but an achievement of Dudley Sirisena and the Rice Mafia.

The Pandora Box has much more to follow. It is the box of business, merchants and dealers – who may be the mafia, too.  Surely, what government would raise the price of gas used in domestic cooking by more than a thousand rupees? It is the stuff of the Pandora Mafia. Just watch out, it can even rise by another thousand rupees very soon — could this be the Gammanpila Pandora Player?

Did Saubhagya Governance ever want to raise the price of bread? What nonsense. The government – ministers and MPs want to keep it down. But the evil that flowed from the Pandora Box made it rise. Who was the Pandora Bread/Flour minister?

Not only bread, milk powder, too. Would any MP, Minister or even a President, want to raise the price of powdered milk, which is part of a child’s daily diet? Never. This price increase is also the work of the Pandora Box – Kiri Piti – Mafia, which is much more powerful than the mafia of political corruption.

All this is certainly far away from the promises that candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and the other Rajapaksas, too, gave to the people before the presidential and general elections. They never thought that the evil of the Pandora Box would hunt them so well.

To go back to the Pandora story of Greek legend, there is still hope for us. While all the evil from the Pandora Box had escaped before it was closed, Hope still remained trapped in the box. That is the Hope that is left for the Sri Lanka people.

Let us not allow this Hope to be trapped in a box at the Rajavasala. We can be glad about Gotabaya’s admission of failure. But our larger Hope will be in a political escape from the wider Rajapaksa governance —  moving next from Basil to Namal. Let’s keep praying for the escape of Pandora Hope for us. Even a little hope can help us a long way!