We have indeed allowed one powerful man to get away with too much for far too long.
Fellow citizens, this honourable man is in our midst even today.
Honourable Prime Minister, in this very land, over the past 23 years, you broke your party the UNP. Honourable Prime Minister with your distinct inaction over the bond scam, you permitted your friends to perpetuate two further high value bonds that cost the people of this country a whole ‘lorra’ money.
Please understand honourable Prime Minister, when we use the term ‘honourable’ we do it out of respect for the traditions conventions and dignity of the office of the Prime Minister.
But please don’t take it literally. For you honourable Prime Minister are anything but an honourable man.
You are a broken man presiding over a broken society and a broken party. So you are willing to break every democratic institution to try and fix the predicament you find yourself in.
For starters the predicament you find yourself in is that you are hanging on to the leadership of the UNP by relying on the men you appointed to the working committee.
If you are indeed such a mature, committed democrat with party and country and democracy in your heart, you will for heaven’s sake at least, quit the party.
By resigning the leadership of the party you will at least display some affection and gratitude to the party and its loyal followers who have kept you in a style that you would hardly have been able to had you not been the leader of the UNP.
There are members who back you because they are too frightened to do anything other than back you. Your grip on the party would have put Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier to shame.
You are willing to break this party and parliament if it means escaping accountability for the wrongs you have done.
Sri Lanka has an inalienable right to determine the scale of our living. We have a right to expect that our politicians behave within a certain sangfroid. That they deliver to us our expectations at least cost and least delay.
Not for us in Sri Lanka any possibility of our nation descending to the depths of depravity in terms of accountability and responsibility – like sadly, Zimbabwe is now. However unlike in Zimbabwe where they are taking steps to fix the problem after ejecting Robert Mugabe, in Sri Lanka there is an almost convoluted approach to understanding the art of fixing the problem – which is one of leadership, motivation and a long term approach rather than the short termism of corruption and deal making.
Parliament’s constitutional obligation to fearlessly scrutinise and oversee matters was corrupted by the UNP members who demanded to sign off the COPE report on the bond with what has become known as ‘footnotes’.
We knew at that very moment on March 17th 2015 when the Prime Minister took responsibility for changing the system of awarding bonds and thereafter blaming it on Arjuna Mahendran, that our democratic order was in grave danger.
But here’s the question Mr Prime Minister, you who are first amongst equals, what did you do Mr Prime Minister?
Unfortunately Mr Prime Minister as the Minister in charge of the Central Bank, what you did do is the problem.
You did nothing. Zilch. Zero.
Honourable Prime Minister we will never ever forgive you for what you did not do in terms of corruption in Sri Lanka.
(With thanks and apologies to the South African Democratic Alliance Leader Mmusi Maimane who inspired us to edit his speech to appeal to a Sri Lankan audience)
