Tread cautiously

Saturday 16th July, 2022

The ordinary people must have thought they would benefit from the Galle Face Aragalaya and threw their weight behind the protesting youth. But the main beneficiary of the Aragalaya has been Ranil Wickremesinghe; the first wave of protests enabled him to secure the premiership, and the second one made him the Acting President! The people continue to suffer, and Wickremesinghe is grinning from ear to ear while the Aragalaya activists are licking their wounds following their unsuccessful bid to march on Parliament. Thankfully, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who became failure and arrogance personified, has run away, but given the present circumstances, there is no guarantee that his ouster will create the desired conditions for the amelioration of public woes. Whether the people have ‘swapped ginger for chillies’ remains to be seen.

Grabbing vital government positions is one thing, but carrying out one’s duties and functions to the satisfaction of the people is quite another. The Acting President, and the Prime Minister to be appointed must not lose sight of the fact that the burning problems that led to the resignation of President Rajapaksa remain, and the people are sure to rebel again sooner than expected unless urgent action is taken to redress their legitimate grievances. It will be a huge mistake for anyone to brand all protesters ‘fascists’ and resort to military action to suppress protests. Such suppressive measures are fraught with the danger of letting the genie out of the bottle.

The country must be freed from the tentacles of the Rajapaksa family, which ruined the country. This goal will remain unattainable so long as the cronies of the Rajapaksas retain their hold on power. Hence the need to remove all those, identified with the parasitic family, from the key government positions so that there will be a clear hiatus in the corrupt Rajapaksa rule. Otherwise, the likes of Basil Rajapaksa will continue to keep the government on a string through their proxies to further their interests, and the people will be left with no alternative but to intensify their protests, throwing the country into turmoil and ruining the prospects of economic recovery.

The youth have been fighting for a radical departure from the current political culture, and they are bound to rebel further to achieve their goal. They are not likely to settle for cosmetic political changes. They are asking for a system overhaul, and nothing less. One cannot but see eye to eye with them on this score although one may not endorse some of the methods that they have adopted to achieve their goal.

The blame for the escalation of tensions should be apportioned to the SJB as well. It, in its wisdom, resorted to brinkmanship and turned down an opportunity to defuse the build-up of public anger, which finds expression in aggressive protests from time to time. Its leader should have accepted the premiership offered by the then beleaguered President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in May. Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, true to form, missed the bus. Otherwise, he would have succeeded Gotabaya as the President and had legitimacy to hold the presidency, as an elected MP.

Meanwhile, it is only wishful thinking that a committee consisting of the IGP and the tri-forces commanders will be able to bring order out of chaos so long as the people undergo unbearable hardships for no fault of theirs. Mobs must not be allowed to invade Parliament, which must be defended at any cost. The Acting President has undertaken to ensure that the MPs will be able to vote freely next Wednesday, when Parliament will elect the next President. He deserves public assistance to accomplish this task. However, the anarchical elements and the youth with genuine grievances must not be lumped together and given the same treatment. Millions of youth have taken to the streets as they are in the depths of despair, fearing for their future. Their concerns must be heeded and everything possible done to solve their problems and infuse them with hope. They must not be driven to extremes. They must be handled with care.