Saturday Apr 27, 2024
Saturday Apr 27, 2024
Friday, 27 March 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
There are at least three ways to view the sudden swell in the numbers of government ministers earlier this week.
The first is a charitable one – that “these things happen” and it’s all to be expected (and even accepted) as par for the course in island politics.
The second is a cynical one – suggesting that “there’s more to this than meets the eye”, hinting at hidden agendas and vested interests, necessitating some pragmatic horse-trading and wheeler-dealing.
The third is a critically subversive one – “who knows what” – knowing but not really understanding; and winking with a nod at the potentially paradigm-shifting game-changing going on behind the scenes, in front of the public’s gaze, and all around the corridors of power.
(Bless my soul... it’s all in The Prince; that consummate treatise in the art of realpolitik by that master at the art of the possible: Machiavelli.)
The charitable
‘soft’ view
This perspective of the increase in the total number of ministers – to a grand total of 77, deputies included – sees government as being both serious and sincere about good governance.
It goes like this: 
The 19th Amendment is a key piece of legislation requiring a broad alliance across the floor of the House. The only way to tie in the cooperation of both ‘sides’ (an artificial divide, if there ever was one) is to buy the MPs’ ‘votes’ with offers of ministries. So the people can – and must – understand the need to go back on some election promises to trim government in order to pre-empt the abuse of power and usher democratic checks and balances back in.
“Naïve”, to say the least – in every sense... And ‘buying’ votes to bolster support for legislative reform smacks not of a parliamentary democracy, but a parasitical kleptocracy?
The cynical ‘strategic’ view
This way of seeing the swollen ranks of Cabinet – where once no more than 25 members were envisaged and electioneered – regards this administration as being serious about governance, but not so sincere about being ‘good’ at it.
Here is that view:
The thus-far UNP-dominated Cabinet, and the Central Bank exposé and other exposures, had opened up the minority government’s flank to opposition flak. So the offer to encompass even those who formerly held portfolios in MR’s Cabinet was a necessary sop to Cerberus. It was purely and simply a cynical ploy to silence the growing dissent in the House and the threat that the premier would have the rug pulled out from under his party’s feet. (If there is such a threat, sir, you’re standing on the wrong rug. And, in politics, things are rarely simple and never pure…)
At the same time, it would serve to alleviate ally MS’s precarious position as head of state, as majoritarian-backed head of a minority-led government, as head of a party (SLFP) and a coalition (UPFA) that has been at the cross-roads as never before, and as head of an ad-hoc administration needing a boost urgently to recover its and/or his authenticity.
A “pragmatic necessity”, would perhaps best describe it.
The critically ‘subversive’ view
This point of view might address itself to a burgeoning ‘national unity government’ that is not sincere, and was never really serious about good governance at all.
That take thus:
The possible post-election-victory re-emergence of the MR camp was envisaged early – well before the Nuremberg-style Nugegoda rally and the attendant prime ministerial candidature fait accompli. So the inclusion of MR’s erstwhile mandarins would not only stymie that worthy’s emerging latter-day claim to fame as the arguably flagging SLFP’s best parliamentary-polls bet. It would also consolidate MS’s hold over his party and his coalition – both of which are demonstrably tenuous, as seen from the outside. This is a subversive stance to take in connection with the national unity government, because it borders on Machiavellian realpolitik. Or, to paraphrase government’s position while couching it in that worthy’s ‘Princely’ terms, it is “the past making-of-promises in the ostensible ‘best national interest’ then, with the possible intention of a present breaking-of-promises – also ostensibly in the ‘best national interest’, now”.
A subversive stratagem! One where government’s “set a thief to catch a thief” agenda has set the cat among the pigeons in parliament this week… Where even parties notorious for hunting with the hare while running with the hounds (the all-new but same-old JVP, for instance) are baying for blood. Anyone’s blood, really, because they are all – UNP, SLFP, et al. – the same creature. Corruptible, opportunistic, partisan, self-seeking, manipulative.
There is a fourth possibility
That a select coterie of politicians in the senior echelons of state are both serious about government and sincere about good governance, but working to a larger concealed and strategic plan that takes precedence over the visible 100-day program put out for public consumption.
The broad elements of this strategy could include the persistent undermining of the SLFP, a gradual legislature- and then judiciary-driven transfer of executive power from the presidency to the premiership, the localisation of that power in one long-term-thinking statesman’s entirely legitimate ambitions. We might call it The condemnable ‘sinister’ view. It has all the chutzpah of a real Machiavelli behind the scenes, and all the subtlety of a true Prince of Realpolitik pulling the strings like a master puppeteer.
(Who can this be, if the scenario is accurate and complete? Time will tell... But some former cronies of MR seem to know the answer – that this is a ‘conspiracy’ to unbalance the presidency and shift the balance of power to the premier. Of course, these ‘theorists’ might in turn be asked why they are opposed to ostensibly democratic measures such as 19A now, when they were once so cravenly in favour of blatant despotic bludgeoning such as the 18th Amendment then…)
In the meanwhile, these signs and wonders could well accompany the rising of this master strategist’s ascendant:
