Today’s struggle for democracy

Was it really a birthday? When President Gotabaya Rajapaksa completed 73 years, we did not see any official or family celebrations – the stuff of Rajapaksa power, and the politics of crooked governance.Instead, there was much more of the Gota Power on show. Twenty-one Protesters on what is now described as the front of Gota entrance to his office were arrested and taken away by the Police. That must be a show of Gota Birthday Power!

The protests also affected the entrance to the nearby Finance Ministry, and the coming team from the IMF was shifted to the PM’s office. Was this a show of Gota’s continuing failure in dealing with the IMF, which he kept postponing to contact when he followed Ajith Nivaard Cabraal’s thinking on economics and money power?
Or, was it a show of the bigger power of the Prime Minister, who has been making a big display of his commitment to Yoga exercise? The twists and turns on his Yoga display were very much in keeping with his deformed and distorted politics, and governance.

The real power today is in the tanks of the vehicles that seek fuel. If the tanks are even half full, you have the power in this rising Fuel Society.
The fuel prices are due to make a big hike, which is on the way to making Sri Lanka hold the record for the highest fuel costs in the world – in the dirty Rajapaksa Rupees. Shouldn’t this be cause for great celebration? This is how the Gota-Ranil Combine shows the world what a costly country Sri Lanka is, for its own people.
If there was no celebration of the Gota B’day at Janadhipathi Mandiraya, there was plenty of it throughout the country, in the fuel queues – be it for petrol, diesel or kerosene. The thousands lined up in these queues have begun to make special can-designs and have special can-dances with the cans they carry for the fuel, and the quick banging of the cars and other vehicles that are in other queues.

The Queue Celebrants who are showing the world the power of long-line celebrations, have begun to mark special records of those who die in queues. They are reportedly very keen to have a monument to mark where each person died, so that we will soon have a world record in the numbers killed in queues. This will soon be called the KiQ celebrations of the Gota-Ranil contortion in politics and governance. Very soon Sri Lanka will be world leader in the KiQ records, which could be a celebratory factor for Gota-Ranil power, and possibly the IMF’s plans to have a Strategy for Progress in this country.

We now have the two main Opposition political parties boycotting parliament for one week. What a show of Opposition Politics!
The leaders of both the SJB and the JVP/NPP must be looking with rising anxiety at the ‘Aragalaya’ displays at Galle Face Green. Are their boycotts of parliament showing that they have begun to understand the major changes in political thinking in Sri Lanka? Both these parties have had huge public rallies in Colombo and other main towns before the rise of the Aragalaya. The SJB and JVP leaders must surely be aware that the elections they are calling for, will need bigger changes in the politics and governance in Sri Lanka.Whether we are thinking after Gotabhaya’s birthday, or in the continuing crumble of the Gota-Ranil shady and shadowy governance, we will certainly need different norms and standards to select the candidates for the next election. Family fronts, links and alliances must be ruled out, and the selection of uneducated persons for parliamentary power, must certainly be pushed away from the politics of governance.

 Party politics must be the stuff of democracy – where party leadership is moved away from family politics, and brought to a genuine People’s leadership. The reality of Sri Lankan politics was a show of family power in both the UNP and SLFP, that gave the leadership till 1977; and hugely the crooked politics that has followed since then, under JRJ thinking and working.
The GotaGoGama thinking of today goes far beyond the reach and scope of the Rajapaksas, and the warped politics of JRJ and nephew Ranil.The long and suffering queues of today painfully seeking fuel, food and medicine, and the rising call for the care of children and better and meaningful education to them, are asking for a major political change in the country. It is a call for a True Democracy, away from the mockery of the people, to the real and democratic Power of the People.The Gota-Ranil ridicule of governance today, with its show of Gota power with Ranil Yoga-play must soon be the history or a truly rising democracy. Let us bring new life to the Ceylonese and Sri Lankan peoples’ call for Freedom from colonial rule; and also take it away from Family Power of Sri Lankan politics that has made a huge mockery of democratic thinking. We are now at the call of a National Aragalaya – beyond Galle Face, and into the hearts, minds and arms of the people – a true Jana Balaya, a dedicated Struggle for Democracy!