Disciplinarian, discipline thyself!

Sarath Fonseka was marketed, at least in the early days of the campaign, as someone who was scrupulously honest and someone who was disciplined. The Rajapaksa regime was duly portrayed as being dishonest and lacking in discipline.

The allegations have not been substantiated with respect to the dishonest charge or have been backed by flimsy and inconclusive evidence, but the fact remains that politicians are hardly incorruptible.

Moreover, there is wide acceptance of the adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Given the constitutional provisions and the kind of power residenced in the office of the Executive President, given the massive frauds perpetrated by Mahinda Rajapaksa’s immediate predecessor (not just allegation, but court determination), it is a believable contention, and even Mahinda Rajapaksa himself, guilty or otherwise, must concede that there will always be suspicion.

Our political culture has for a long time been of the kind where it is hard to distinguish politician from thug and indeed we’ve had underworld creatures Frankensteining themselves into politicians and vice versa. Things are not as bad as they were during the JRJ-Premadasa times or the Chandrika years, but they haven’t got a whole lot better either.

So, at the beginning, it was natural for campaign strategists to take ‘clean plus disciplined’ as a winning formula. On the other hand, one can’t take a brand or a product very far if they lack the attributes that they are said to have. This is what happened to Sarath Fonseka. It was bound to happen in the no-quarter-asked-none-given dogfight that this was going to turn into. The true personality, the true character jumps out of uniform, jumps out of skin and in Fonseka’s case it hasn’t been pretty. There is also this truism: saints can fly, but saint-claimants can only jump: and they fall hard.

Let’s start with the Mr. Clean’s claim. We’ve had the Hicorp deal and how Fonseka helped turn his son-in-law into a millionaire through fraudulent means, knowingly fudging procedure and fiddling around with classified information to grant favours. We’ve had Sapphire Gate, where the Fonseka campaign shamelessly tried to purchase an MP for a cool 30 million rupees.

We had Mr Humble Bumble Fonseka demanding State land for services rendered (what an exemplary public servant!) and whined that 10 perches of prime property in Colombo was not enough, that 15 was not enough, that 20 was not enough and finally settled for 25. We now know how his telephone abuse cost the Army millions of rupees. We know how pally he is with Ranil Wickremesinghe, a man who is the most corrupt person ever to lead the UNP, violating the principles of transparency and accountability in all transactions pertaining to party finances. We know how ‘clean’, his campaign manager, Mangala Samaraweera is. As for Ravi Karunanayaka he is Mr. Clean personified, having cleaned up Sathosa.

How about his latest right-hand man, Sarath N. Silva? As self-seeking, as vindictive and given to abuse of position and worse, being selective in dispending justice. Fonseka can ask Ranil Wickremesinghe or Anura Kumara Dissanayake for a copy of the motion to impeach Sarath Nanda Silva if he is really interested in wiping out wrongdoing. Charity, they say, begins at home. Discipline. There is a difference between discipline and being humourless and authoritarian. There is a difference between being brutal and being disciplined. Fonseka has a very worrying reputation for being brutal in the treatment of subordinates. He has hardly been Mr. Disciplined while an officer, being charged with all kinds of misdemeanours which he is yet to give details of. He has been accused of cutting the ear of a barber for the ‘crime’ of scratching his (Fonseka’s ear) while giving him a haircut. Where is the discipline in all of this?

What kind of discipline makes it possible for him to cut a deal with the LTTE’s proxy in Parliament, the TNA, promising things that add up to a resurrection of Eelamism and worse a concretizing of territorial claim and legitimating land-theft? Mahinda has ex-LTTEers such as Karuna and Pilleyan in his fold, but the difference is that he has absorbed them into his politics, made them give into his agenda whereas Fonseka has now become a proxy of Prabhakaran’s proxy. That’s ‘discipline’? Sounds more like ‘greed’ to me.

Just the other day, Mr. Disciplined came out in his true colours when he started using the most uncouth language while responding to allegations regarding the Hicorp deal. That was not ‘Presidential’. It was Mervinesque.

Mr. Disciplined said that his son-in-law was not involved in such a company. Later he admitted he was. Then he tried to cover up the hanky-panky. Then, when faced with irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing, he lost it showing how foul-mouthed he is.

The problem with the Fonseka campaign then is that it has failed to live up to its promise. Sarath Fonseka is not a sellable brand in that his life and his statements undermine the attribute-claim and therefore takes the gloss of the product.

This is why his campaign theme of ‘change’ sounds flat. This is why when he says ‘change’, people hear ‘small change’, ‘short-change’ and as my friend Nish Pitigala says, ‘chump change’. Sad.

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