When dawn broke on January 1st last year, the people awoke to see President Ranil Wickremesinghe perilously walking on the burning rope bridge with infant Lanka bundled up under his arm, desperately attempting to cross the chasm of bankruptcy to gain economic liberation, which the IMF gods had promised the nation, lay on the sunny side of the gorge.

He had nought with him but his steadfast faith and a persistent prayer on his lips, reciting the mantra, ‘economy, economy, economy,’ endlessly as his gods had bade, to end a 76-year curse of pandering to every need and want of infant Lanka to stop her pathetic mewling from rising to a higher note.

But throughout last year the mewl grew louder as the pampered infant’s insatiable wants quickened in tempo and shriller and ear-splitting in tenor, and anguished cries, seeing the infant ill-treated, broke out: ‘Get off the IMF rope bridge. It hasn’t done any country good. Neither will it keep our infant wrapped in cotton wool. We ourselves must scale the mount to find our release.’

As the cry resounded in the valleys and dales below where the wretched masses lived out their pitiful lives at hunger’s death door, the rope bridge on which President Ranil had walked as if it was his daily exercise routine suddenly turned into a pirate’s plank where the condemned stage their last walk at sea.

NEW DAWN: Lanka welcomes 2025

In September last year, President Ranil Wickremesinghe kept his tryst with his condemned fate. He was flung from the rope bridge and plunged into the gaping yawn of oblivion. Fortunately, infant Lanka was saved by those below who had vowed to scale the mountain of debt alone.

Hallelujah! The masses hailed to see the last of the burning rope bridge, the stark and shameful symbol of a nation’s bankruptcy, even as the empty gas cylinder had been the painful reminder of a people’s dark days of long-drawn suffering.

Hallelujah! Here at last was the promised dawn, when a nation finally exorcised seventy-six accursed years of its corrupt past and opened a new window to let in pristine rays of a newly risen sun, light upon a self-reliant youthful Lanka on the march to forge the future alone, without the patronising aid of western-dominated lending agencies, practising neocolonialism to keep the natives captive in economic fetters. Here at last was the hour come.

When dawn broke on January 1st this year, the people awoke to see newly elected President Anura Kumara walk, in the same perilous step of his predecessor, on the burning rope bridge with infant Lanka bundled up under his arm, desperately attempting to cross the chasm of bankruptcy to gain economic liberation, which IMF gods had promised the nation, lay on the sunny side of the gorge.

Thankfully for the nation, he was not bent on rocking the burning rope bridge, despite his lofty pre-election promise to do so. Instead, he was determined to last the torturous course no matter what it took, no matter what it cost, no matter how painful the hardships were to those in poverty’s gutter and even to those above it, to reach the IMF’s promised land on the other sunlit side of the debt mount.

No change in VAT, no fall in electricity charges, no reduction in fuel, no reduction in taxes, no fall in the cost of living, and no miracles wrought with one stroke of a pen, and many more similar promises were left on the wayside to litter the country’s landscape. If the laws fall silent in times of war, it seems in times of peace, manifesto promises also fall silent.

But one must understand, mustn’t one? Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor can coconut trees miraculously shoot like Jack’s bean stalk, nor can a baby be born overnight after the marriage is consummated. Time must be granted for any plan to mature and be implemented, even as it takes time to proceed from a dream into reality.

Agriculture Minister Lalkantha’s pre-election vow to set up village courts to deliver summary justice has been mercifully shelved on assuming office. Instead, he has been relegated to bringing ‘rilaws’ to justice to face, without trial, lethal consequences for the plunder of coconuts.

The only promised system change that has happened so far is the change of faces in Parliament. With the advent of a tsunami tidal wave, which left in its ebb, dime a dozen unknown NPP MPs in the House to replace the old guard, Diyawanna’s chamber has been transformed into a Montessori for kids. But the revelation of a bogus Japanese doctorate and the discovery of an alleged extramarital love affair in full bloom on NPP backbenches can now, perhaps, be elevated to a school of scandal.

Yet for the relatively experienced lot who have learnt from their salad days in parliament, it’s best to take the conventional road of past masters rather than hazard the future by trodding unknown virgin ground.

Perhaps it’s why President Anura Kumara Dissanayake stuck to conventional wisdom and was found on a precarious rope bridge when dawn broke on January 1st this year.

Jimmy Carter: ‘Most decent President in the White House in the 20th century’

When peanut farmer Jimmy Carter became US President, a wag quipped, “I was told anyone could become US President, now I believe it.”

Jimmy Carter who became US President in 1977, died this week at his Georgia home aged 100. Many US political commentators described Carter as ‘the most decent man to have occupied the White House in the 20th century’.

He was accorded a state funeral which began yesterday and will culminate on the 9th which has been declared as a day of national mourning. The US flag has been ordered to be flown at half-mast from all State buildings for 30 days. Cynical observers may wonder if this is a cynical opportunistic move on the part of the outgoing Biden administration to eclipse the jubilations planned for January 20th, the day of Trump’s inauguration as President.

CAMP DAVID ACCORD HERO: Carter wins Nobel Peace Award in 2002

President Biden led the nation’s tribute to President Jimmy Carter. He declared: “With his compassion and moral clarity, he worked to eradicate disease, forge peace, advance civil rights and human rights, promote free and fair elections, house the homeless, and always advocate for the least among us,” Biden’s statement said. “He saved, lifted, and changed the lives of people all across the globe.”

Incoming President Trump said: “President Jimmy Carter is dead at 100 years of age. While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realised that he truly loved and respected our country, and all it stands for. He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect. He was a truly good man and, of course, will be greatly missed. He was also very consequential, far more than most Presidents, after he left the Oval Office.”

Although Carter’s one term presidency was branded a failure, his record achievement in presidency was the Camp David Accord. Carter persuaded Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin for a stay at the US presidential Camp David retreat, Maryland in 1978. It was a limitless stay, and the understanding was that none would leave until and unless a lasting peace deal was struck. The two leaders were virtually held captive by Carter who refused to free them till they agreed to sign the Camp David Peace Accord.

For their tireless efforts to achieve a durable peace in war-torn Middle East, they won the well-deserved Noble Peace Award.  It was no mean feat that President Carter did to bring two historical foes to the same peace table in a US presidential cabin in Maryland and keep them there for thirteen endless days talking nothing but peace and the horrors of war.

Another interesting episode of a deeply religious man when he revealed in a Playboy Magazine interview, that he had committed adultery many times in his heart.

How ironic that Carter, described as the most decent man in the white House, should exit the stage on the virtual eve of the second advent of the man described by his democrat foes as the devil in disguise.