Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, arrested and remanded on Friday (22) for alleged misuse of state funds during a visit to London, while in office, was granted bail yesterday.
Large crowds flocked to Colombo yesterday, when the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court took up the case against Wickremesinghe. In a rare show of unity, the Opposition parties have circled the wagons around Wickremesinghe, vowing to defeat what they describe as a witch-hunt against the political rivals of the government. They have accused the JVP, which leads the ruling NPP coalition, of striving to create a one-party rule.
The warring political leaders have said they hold the judiciary in high esteem, and their protests are against the NPP government and the CID, which, they say, is all out to silence democratic dissent at the behest of its political masters. Among those who have rallied around Wickremesinghe are some of his sworn political enemies. They have rightly condemned the politicisation of the police and selective enforcement, but one cannot endorse the timing of yesterday’s protest. The deplorable practice of political parties and other organisations holding demonstrations while cases pertaining to issues that affect their interests are being heard, should be discontinued, for such events, silent or otherwise, are tantamount to efforts to influence, if not intimidate, the judiciary.
The government has sought to lump all those who are defending Wickremesinghe together and vilify them as rogues. We can see some undesirables among the defenders of the former President. Even Mervyn Silva has taken up the cudgels for Wickremesinghe’s rights! However, the government will be mistaken if it thinks it can hoodwink the public with the help of a false dichotomy. Every political party has its share of rogues. The government has unwittingly provided the Opposition, which was in disarray, with a rallying point.
What is at issue is not the arrest of a former President. It is far more complex and disconcerting than that. Successive governments have sought to turn the CID into Sri Lanka’s Gestapo, and the current dispensation is apparently determined to achieve that goal soon, with one of its party activists being at the helm of it. Autocratic tendencies run through almost every Sri Lankan political party, as we have seen under successive governments, but they are much more pronounced in outfits like the JVP, which has a history of resorting to terrorism to achieve its political goals.
The UNP, which is playing the victim card today, ruined Sri Lankan politics; it did everything in its power to destroy the multiparty system and establish a one-party rule from 1977 to 1994. Thankfully, its efforts failed but they plunged the country into a bloodbath, with the JVP launching its second uprising. Attacks on the Opposition continued under the SLFP-led People’s Alliance government, and they took a turn for the worse under the UPFA government under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency. President Rajapaksa debilitated all other political parties by causing splits in them and engineering mass crossovers. Wickremesinghe himself stands accused of having broken up political parties. The UNP-led Yahapalana government used the CID to do its dirty work with the blessing of Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister.
Since 1978, almost all Executive Presidents have been driven by autocratic tendencies; they have suppressed the Opposition and carried out attacks on democracy, albeit to varying degrees. However, those who cherish democracy and the multi-party system naturally become overly concerned when a Marxist party’s General Secretary who is widely considered an eminence grise, echoes the views of the Chinese Communist Party leaders’ position on governance––apparently with approval. After returning from a visit to China, JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva said in a media interview earlier this month that the Chinese leaders had told him that it would take the NPP government about 15 to 20 years to implement the changes it had promised. The Opposition is of the view that the JVP/NPP is working according to a plan to perpetuate its rule by dismantling the other political parties.
It is the fervent hope of every right-thinking citizen that all those who are responsible for corrupt practices and abuse of power will be brought to justice. But that should be done in a proper manner and not according to any political agenda. In the case of Wickremesinghe, the CID has not properly investigated allegations against him; obviously, it was in a mighty hurry to arrest him to please the government. Politically motivated arrests are counterproductive as has been the experience of all past governments that resorted to them out of desperation.
