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| So it's not about good governance but a UNP government, haamuduruwane? |
Rev Maduluwawe Sobitha Thero was one of the strongest advocates of ‘good governance’ and therefore lent weight and slogan both to Maithripala Sirisena’s presidential campaign. The good Thero was a tad disappointed that the new government didn’t do away with the Executive Presidency but that can be put down to not taking the trouble to read the small print of Sirisena’s manifesto and being unable to unpack parliamentary dynamics. He even expressed remorse over his ‘contribution’ to the January 8 result. The Thero is now disturbed and that has nothing to do with fascination with the idea of a better social order. It’s basic. Base politics. UNP politics to be exact.
Rev Sobitha Thero wants Maithripala Sirisena to be neutral during the upcoming election campaign. He believes this would make it possible for him to bring ‘warring parties’ together after the results are announced. Whether or not warring parties would want to tie some kind of parliamentary marital knot is not relevant here. What’s pertinent is that the Thero is essentially asking the leader of one of the major parties to absent himself. That would obviously help at least one of the warring parties and none so much as the UNP.
If this neutral-call didn’t show Rev Sobitha Thero’s political preferences an attendant statement most certain does; the Thero is upset (!) that Sirisena has talked about wanting his party to do well. Now that’s rich. Rev Sobitha thinks it is odd and unacceptable that the leader of a political party should support that very party. Has the good reverend left his sense in some place from which they cannot be retrieved, one wonders.
Maithripala Sirisena appears to be ideologically and politically so confused that he can’t distinguish blue from green, thinking the latter is the former and the former is somehow the color of kurahan associated with his predecessor. That’s a different matter. That’s his problem and perhaps choice, the consequences for which he will no doubt have to deal with at some point in the near future. The point is that Rev Sobitha has now openly backed the UNP to the point that he loses the right to talk about things like ‘national government,’ ‘good governance’ and the ‘unholy marriages of horrors’.
Now if only the good Thero had added something like 'he must also resign from the SLFP' it might have sounded decent.
This, avasarai haamuduruwane, is indecent.