Ranil’s sense of sacrifice
In a condolence message on the demise of Justice Sri Skandarajah, Ranil Wickremesinghe spoke of sacrifice. ‘Democracy is a process of sacrifices,’ he said and observed, ‘we can honour Justice Sriskandarajah by resolving to ensure that the personal sacrifices he made to keep Sri Lanka civilized and true to the rule of law would not have been in vain’. This is good. The UNP membership, we hear, are holding their collective breath for him to resign. Sacrifice begins at home, did someone say?
Vijitha’s ‘Always Breakdown Party’
Vijitha Herath of the JVP claims that the current government is an ‘always breakdown’ entity. Strange. The JVP not only ‘broke down’ countless times in the last 50 years, but got bloody nosed too. Metaphorically and literally. Worse, the JVP did everything possible to break-down the entire country. What would Vijitha call the JVP, one wonders. The Nava Always Breakdown Party?
Padukka's love story
That's Niroshan Padukka, the young and dynamic UNP organizer of the Homagama electorate. Young Padukka came up with the most interesting poster during the much advertized and fairly well attended Opposition demonstration on Tuesday: 'mata mage novana apema pakshayak thibuna'. The line, a take from a currently popular song, essentially contends that he, Padukka, believes there was a party that belonged to them all (UNPers) but does not belong to him. There's a term for this: alienation.UNPers don't feel belonged to the party they officially belong to. Padukka clearly wanted to make a statement. Some might say 'washing dirty linen in public', but then again the seniors in the party haven't been doing much over the last so many years apart from washing each other’s dirty linen in public.
Name-change
Nothing lasts forever. Long years ago, there was a party called the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. People called it 'SLFP' or just 'Sri Lanka', as opposed to 'UNP'. Then we had the People's Alliance; it was called PA or 'Podu Peramuna'. Now there's the UPFA, generally referred to in Sinhala as 'Sandanaya'.Through it all, there was the UNP. United. National. Party. Someone might ask 'Party, what kind of party, what kind of music, where and when?' It has come to that. As for 'national', let's not talk about that. Most important is the word 'United'. That's ridiculous folks. No party in post-Independent Sri Lanka has had so many who love nothing better than insult one another. Bickering is the word. JVP gets it right
Alfred Lord Tennyson gave words to King Arthur: 'The old order changeth, yielding place to new and god fulfils himself in many ways, lest one good custom corrupt the world'. The JVP is poised to get a new, young leader. Whether this would change its political fortunes is not yet clear, but the move is good. It is fresh and refreshing. Would the UNP follow suit?