Hard To Reverse A Jumbo Cabinet
Mahinda campaigners, near Matara.
Sri Lanka’s cabinet now has 99 members (including Deputy Ministers, and the President). There are only 144 government MPs in Parliament, so it’s no longer even a privilege being in Cabinet, it’s more of an embarrassment to be left out. Despite opposition MP Ravi Karunayake complaining that it cost around Rs. 400 million per Minister per month (about 3 million dollars), this horse has long ago left the barn. It seems like every government MP will be a soon be a Minister. The only way out seems to be to have more opposition MPs.
Lest I belabor the point, it’s the UNP dictatorship under Ranil that’s led to this turn of affairs. Mahinda was able to buy a 2/3rds majority in Parliament since no one wants to be in Ranil’s perpetual opposition and perks like this are how he buys people. The concept that an efficient cabinet might be good for governing is somewhat alien to the Rajapaksa, who are essentially running the country like a family business.
They’ve twisted the institutions of democracy so much that Minister is the new MP. I think the solution is to just make everyone Ministers (with the title) but none of the staff or perks. The ultimate solution, of course, is to have an actual opposition which turns the Parliament into something more than a coterie of made men.
Not to quote Ice Cube, but the Sri Lankan police are hardly beloved. A 
I just gave a talk at the University Of Sri Jayawardenapura along with Reeza Zarook of Anything.lk and Rohan Jayaweera of Google. These are my notes: Devin Jayasundara asked me for a subject for this talk and I told him Internet property. But I talked to my fiancé Shru and she had a better idea. Startups aren’t about creating property at all, not really. They’re about creating territory, about creating land.
I haven’t been blogging much, I know. It’s partly because we’ve been doing a lot of work on YAMU, especially shipping 1.0.1 of the Android app today. It’s on the 
I met an old-timer who said they used to drop acid and sleep atop Sigiriya, but the place has taken on a more commercial and quasi-spiritual role now. It was built by a king as a sort of retreat and used as a monastery. Now it’s a prime tourist and cultural destination. Hence it’s a bit odd to see a Japanese beer commercial shot up there. There’s a bunch of people eating, um, deep fried cream filled coconuts and then drinking some bracing beer. I hear the whole thing cost Rs. 25,000 (I’m presuming they used stock images).
Honestly the GOP has become Grand Old Joke (GOJ). Their supporters lack the balls to make any party change and keep supporting lackys like Ravi Karunanayake.
Seems the reshuffle was about rewarding those who supported the impeachment?
Analysis below:
http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/15527
In general, the whole thing is about patronage.
“India known to be a global economic powerhouse having only 33. Pakistan has only 19 Cabinet Ministers while Maldives has 17. The United States, the number one economy in the world, has only 11 Cabinet Ministers,” – Daily mirror quoting Ravi K
Sickening indeed. I wonder what it takes to get the people on the street protesting, sending a clear message to the govt this is not acceptable?
its true story