The appointment of the Hon. Ravi Karunanayake, MP as the Minister of Power and Energy has set the polecat among the pigeons. It has got a knowing glance from the national press. While setting social media ablaze. And one can see why. But one might also be invited to see why not. Also what else hangs in the balance between political ethics and public expectations.
The reappointment of the Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe, MP as the Prime Minister is not without its own catcalls and controversies. The sentimentally democratic seem unsurprisingly pleased. While less naïve and more cynical stakeholders in the great republican game cough behind closed hands.
The two personalities go hand-in-hand. Or, as the scandal sheets may essay it, they go hand-in-glove. For they are both honourable men. On top of being honourable members of parliament. One has agency in the most recognisable democratic-republican project. While the other has appeared inimical to transparent national governance with integrity. He also seems indispensable to the instrumentality of any United National Party government. This begs not only the question, but an investigation as well. What is really and truly going on?
I can see three ships come sailing in the light of a silvery moon. To essay three levels of possible responses: the superficial, the strategic, and the subversive. The first is sublime for those who like to get angry regularly at political scoundrels who let them down. The second is ridiculous, because we ought to have known better by now that it is ‘for them, not us’ that the great game is being played. And the third is surreal – because it has been hidden in plain sight; yet we refuse to see it, because to do so would be to see things as they are – as nothing – with no one behind them… and induce an incurable nausea at the way sausages are made…
Superficial
On the face of it, the Rt. Hon. Ranil Wickremesinghe has lost it. Where civil society – at least its Colombo based and suburban chapter – expected the cornered worm to turn, the utterly uncowed ‘usual suspects’ appeared to have wormed their way back in. If the urbane kaffeeklatsch set could not countenance a president-led coup then, they now find they can’t take the latest turn of events with milk and two sugars, and lump it.