Damning silence

Editorial-December 3, 2014

SLFP dissident and Opposition presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena is hopeful that there will be many more crossovers from the ruling coalition to help him secure the executive presidency; the government says it is confident that President Mahinda Rajapaksa will be able to spring a big surprise for the Opposition within the next few days. Elections are the times when political frogs have a field day!

Time was when the UPFA gleefully engineered defections from the Opposition and the UNP cried foul, claiming that the defectors had been bribed. In an interesting turn of events replete with irony, the shoe is now on the other foot; the government is making that allegation against its MPs who have joined the Opposition ahead of the Jan. 08 presidential election.

Navin Dissanayake, who resigned from his ministerial post the other day to throw in his lot with the Opposition presidential candidate, has accused the government of having attempted to bribe him to prevent his defection. He was offered as much as Rs. 100 million and some persons approached him for that purpose, he tells us. But, he has stopped short of naming them. What makes him baulk at naming and shaming the persons who have done something wrong and illegal? Offering a bribe to a lawmaker is a very serious offence and the onus is on Dissanayake to report the culprits to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) without further delay.

On Sept. 24, 2013, we quoted the then Health Minister Maithripala Sirisena as having said that the tobacco industry had tried to bribe him and the amount offered was sufficient for 14 generations to live in clover in a ‘First World country’. We editorially urged him to reveal the names of the persons responsible as the public had a right to know who they were. But, he didn’t.

Chandrika Kumaratunga during her second term as President said in public that someone had offered a huge bribe to her and she had turned it down. When she was asked to name the culprit, she chose to remain silent. On March 26, 2008, commenting on bribery and corruption we called upon her to reveal the name of the culprit at least in her retirement, but to no avail.

President Rajapaksa has said recently that he has files on corrupt government politicians, but he will not go public with them. His claim is tantamount to a confession that the corrupt are being shielded by his government! Let him be urged to reveal the names of the corrupt politicians and the offences they have committed. (We know we are only hoping against hope!)

Cricketing legend turned Pakistani politician currently leading a popular struggle to restore democracy and bring about good governance in his country has famously said that nobody approached him or offered him a bribe while he was a player. What he has left unsaid is that no bribes were offered to him as he was considered incorruptible as a player. Judging him is something best left to the people of Pakistan who know him better, but the fact remains that if a person conducts himself or herself like Caesar’s wife no one will dare try to bribe him or her.

Offering a bribe to an honest man/woman is an affront to his/her dignity besides being an offence which is as condemnable as an indecent proposal a kerb-crawler makes to a decent woman. Therefore, those who go about offering bribes must be exposed so that they can be brought to book.

The Opposition big guns who claim to have been insulted in this manner ought to name the culprits. And fast! Tick-tock, tick-tock …