Corruption and comeuppance

Two erstwhile strange bedfellows—the UNP and the JVP—are at each other’s jugular. Following the 2015 regime change, they embarked on the UNP-led Yahapalana government’s anti-corruption crusade. Their political honeymoon lasted for nearly five years.

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Hardly a day passes without President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is also the JVP/NPP leader, taking a swipe at UNP leader and former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, and vice versa. After making a statement to the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), on Monday, over what he had said in defence of former Chief Minister (CM) Chamara Sampath Dassanayake, who is being held on remand for alleged financial malpractices, Wickremesinghe tore into the JVP-led government for having targeted him unfairly. He went on to allege that the CIABOC had leaked information about its correspondence with him to President Dissanayake.

Wickremesinghe’s sharp rebuke of the CIABOC and the JVP/NPP can be considered as an instance of karmic forces in action. When Wickremesinghe was the Prime Minister (from 2015 to 2019), he and his JVP chums including Anura Kumara ran the Yahapalana government’s Anti-Corruption Secretariat, and came under criticism for launching political witch-hunts against their political rivals.