Govt. failure to act against its own will impact credibility

There are a few Government members who are a liability to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the National People’s Power (NPP). Among them are MP Asoka Ranwala, the NPP’s first choice for speaker who had to resign in disgrace over a bogus education qualification. He has since been involved in a road accident adding to the Government’s woes.

The other is NPP’s Kaduwela Mayor Ranjan Jayalal who has faced serious allegations of threatening political opponents and State officials. The latest concerns Jayalal threating an Attorney-at-Law. This time the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) has stepped in to strongly condemn his conduct, alleging that Jayalal had obstructed and hindered an Attorney-at-Law while representing an Animal Welfare Association at an inquiry conducted by the Mayor.

BASL said the Attorney-at-Law had been representing an Animal Welfare Association when the incident occurred. The BASL viewed the Mayor’s conduct as a serious interference with the professional independence and duties of an Attorney-at-Law.

The Association made reference to audio recordings circulating on social media and reports carried by the media, in which the Mayor is allegedly heard claiming to be an “Unofficial Magistrate” and implying that he was exercising judicial authority. BASL stressed that such a claim is wholly erroneous and misconceived, as the Mayor was not acting under the authority of any Magistrate nor exercising any judicial power at the time of the incident.

For many NPP MPs and their local authorities’ members, it’s their first time serving in an elected office. As has happened in the past, when there is a swing in favour of one Government, there is a tidal wave of support with which comes in many unsuitable and unsavoury characters  into public office. They neither understand the seriousness of the role of an elected official nor realise that they are no longer trade unionists who can go around bellowing slogans as they were used to doing.

In the case of Ranwala, even senior ministers in the Government have been forced to defend him after the recent accident, some of them vouching for his sobriety and defending the failure of the police to do a breathalyser test immediately.

This is reminiscent of what most other political parties in power did in the past. They bent backward to defend their party members and failed to address the very serious breaches in law that broke public trust and the end result was their dismal performance in the 2024 elections. The NPP rode to power with the pledge to be unlike the others, to be accountable to the public and often repeat the words ’everyone is equal before the law’. But now going by some of the incidents involving those in the NPP, there is an unwillingness to admit Government members have acted above the law and are more reminiscent of the thuggish politicians of the past.

It’s a fragile relationship that holds voters and their elected officials together and it is based on trust. The President has so far managed to keep voters happy but it’s not easy to say the same of some others in Government. The responsibility is a collective one and if the Government wants to keep the public on its side, it must do so with deeds, not just words. Putting political opponents behind bars, persecuting them etc., will go to only to some extent to keep voters’ content. It won’t be long before they question the Government’s failure to act against its own.