Government Coalition Has Fifty Cracks…And Counting

By Vishnuguptha -May 1, 2014

“Cracks especially, you have to be careful of the cracks. Sometimes they are disguised as something else. A doorway, or a smile or even a winking eye. And if you fall through them, you never know where you will end up.” ~ Isobelle Carmody

On April 17, 2014, this writer wrote thus: “Surrounded by the grandeur of corruption, nepotism and lies, this government, it seems, could be starved to death only by the austerity of truth. One stark example of that truth was shown most glaringly in the recently concluded elections for the Western and Southern Provinces. The monolith that has been withstanding many storms and tempests seems to be eventually showing mild signs of vulnerability. The Emperor’s clothes are beginning to fall.”

But that observation was made particularly in relation to the decrease in the votes that were cast for the candidates put forward by the United People’s Freedom Front (UPFA) at the recently-concluded elections in the Western and Southern Provinces. It was patently evident that the UPFA suffered a minor setback electorally for the first time since the cessation of the armed conflict between the security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE). Nevertheless, the quasi-humiliation the Governing coalition had to endure inside the House of Parliament last week, one might surmise, is a knee-jerk reaction by some self-appointed guardians of theSinhala-Buddhist culture and traditional values- not necessarily a conscious and deliberate political response- to the seemingly eroding mighty powerbase. This knee-jerk reaction or deliberate attempt to distance themselves from ‘UnBuddhist’-sounding policies of the Government occurred when the machinery of the Rajapaksa regime tried to clear the final hurdle for the establishment of what they call three different ‘integrated resorts’ to be set up at a total cost of US$ 1.4 billion (in excess of Rs 180 billion).                                          Read More