JVP Should Be Rewarded

By Hema Senanayake –May 14, 2015

Hema Senanayake

I have no intension to upset you or to excite you by writing what I feel writing in this brief essay. I am beginning to feel that the JVP should be rewarded in big time in the coming general election. I would have never told this if the people were to expel any dictatorial regime through the process of coming election. The expulsion of such a regime was already done by January 08th 2015.

As Minister Rajitha eloquently said what is going to be certain in the next government would be a coalition government of UNP and SLFP or UPFA. Perhaps UNP might get the majority seats and there are chances that UPFA would be the runner up or it could be vice versa. Whatever the case is president’s nominee for Premiership will going to be Ranil Wickremesinghe. This is where I am beginning to be cautious because he has already shown what kind of Prime Minister he is going to be. I was particularly disturbed by Arjuna Mahendran’s case.

Ranil has a buddy. After becoming the Prime Minister he thought that his buddy should be rewarded with a high portfolio. His buddy’s name was Arjuna Mahendran. At the beginning it was rumored that Arjuna was to be appointed as the secretary to the Treasury. Media reported it so. It did not come true. I have a feeling that his appointment as the secretary of the Treasury could have been prevented by the president and his staff. But Ranil did not stop.

Ranil proposed Arjuna Mahendran to be the next Governor of the Central Bank. For Arjuna’s merit he had necessary educational qualification and some international investment banking experience too. Apart from that former Governor Cabraal was an accountant by profession and he was not a banker. This might have provided a justification that if an accountant could have held this position then why it cannot be held by a senior international investment banker. There is big difference between Central banking and investment banking. But Ranil wanted his buddy in the Central Bank quickly. Yet this was not how India thought about this question of appointing a Governor to its Reserve Bank of India (RBI).Read More