MoU With The JHU: Maithripala Must A Be A Deng Hsiao Peng, Not A Mikhail Gorbachev

By Dayan Jayatilleka -December 3, 2014

Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka

“I hate the goddamn system! But until someone comes along with changes that make sense, I’ll stick with it.” – Clint Eastwood as “Dirty Harry” Callaghan, in ‘Magnum Force’ (1973)

Those who criticize my continued ‘nonaligned’ approach to the Presidential election and the candidates, as well as my refusal to convert unthinkingly to the cause of the joint opposition, make the cardinal error of confusinggovernance, government and the State. That is not an error a political scientist is permitted; still less one of Marxian and Leninist provenance such as I am. I agree with all the criticisms made by the Opposition of the present regime and even go beyond them in some aspects. However, those are criticisms about bad governance, and require a solution in precisely that realm. Bad governance must not be confused with the structure and system of the State; the framework of the state.

While I have no problem with the prospect of a Maithripala Sirisena presidency, my problem with the Opposition’s project is that it will not merely displace the regime—which is fine by me—but will weaken the core of the state through the Constitutional ‘shock therapy’ of a 100 day abolition project. JR Jayewardene’s modernizing revolution was located in the domain of the state system; the form of the state – the shift to an elected executive Presidency. I do not think it should be fundamentally reversed or upended.Read More