So it turns out that people voted not for a new politics but for the same old politics — as long as it was carried out by new faces. Most of the faces now at the top of Sri Lanka’s political pyramid aren’t really new at all though. They are in fact the faces of characters we have known for ten, twenty, thirty, forty and even more years. They are the same faces, just older, more saggy, more sclerotic and balder than when they first appeared.

And when the country’s once booming economy and rapid development was handed over to these old, old, old, stuck-in-the-past characters with ulterior motives, anyone could predict accurately the state of affairs we would see at the end of this tumultuous year.

A politician daughter sends her family’s thugs to attack opponents in broad daylight. The population on the verge of a general strike. Haarthals almost every other week by extremist elements. The state planning to pry into every aspect of citizens’ lives through a “Big Brother” database. The pilfering of pension schemes. Hyperinflation of food and other basic necessities. The induced crossing over of MPs through ministerial positions, cars, drivers and perks.

The “good governance” brigade’s corruption is worse and more brazen than ever.

And to top it all off, there was the whole Enrique affair: the famous cricketers who were poster boys of good governance planned it, the good governance Twitter youth debased themselves during it, and to end it, the good governance president — in an attempt to distract from the orgy of crudeness that his regime enabled — muttered some nonsense that made Sri Lanka the laughing stock of the world.

Our nation’s journey to development came to a juddering halt between January and August, and from September to December the engine pulling us forward was dismantled and sold for scrap. The good governance goons took a country that was on the cusp of financial success — finally ready to join the rest of South East Asia after a 40 year delay — and reduced it to a banana republic.

Not bad for just 12 months in power. Almost as if that was the good governance plan all along…

Next year will be far worse. The goons running the show at the moment are planning on a new constitution. This is no small matter. Every fault line that runs beneath the surface of Sri Lanka’s hodgepodge society (if we can even call it a society) will be put under severe stress. The minority groups will see this as their moment to entrench and codify systemic advantages for themselves at the expense of the majority community. Various other special interests will also demand their pound of flesh.

By redrawing electoral boundaries and changing the structure of Sri Lanka’s political system, treacherous politicians will try to ensure that a patriotic force can never be elected to power. The new constitutional court will prevent future leaders from emerging, will obstruct patriotic parties by ruling that their election manifestos are “unconstitutional,” and will stymie any future efforts at restoring democratic representation by blocking patriotic bills and Acts.

However, we must remember that the country is severely split. The votes at the general election divided almost 50-50. But the key point is that the 50% who voted for Mahinda were almost entirely Sinhalese. So 2/3 of the majority voted for Mahinda, while 1/3 voted for servitude. Such a narrow base of majority support is not a strong enough mandate on which to write a constitution which will, by definition and intention, marginalize and delegitimize the indigenous majority group in their own homeland.

Sri Lanka is being colonized and Balkanized. But its citizens — especially the Sinhalese — will have only themselves to blame. They were warned. And they made their choice. I hope they are ready for the earthquake that is coming.