I originally wanted to publish this post to coincide with the completion of the new President Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s first month in his post. But I purposely delayed this as I didn’t want to sensationalize the president unnecessarily by getting carried away with what happened during his inaugural month in office. Besides, this had been the country where in 2015, a senior cabinet minister from the then ruling party contested as a common candidate from the opposition by challenging his own president came to the high office all of a sudden and showed the citizenry how simple he was by using just a cheap ballpoint pen to sign the papers when assuming duties by promising not to misuse public money for his personal luxuries and ended up by globetrotting around the world by literally missing only Vanuatu and asked for a palatial twin-house be refurbished wasting zillions of public money for his retirement and ended up as a hypocrite if not a clown.

In fact, I had earlier decided to write this post under a pseudo name for some other news website but now that we are pretty eased and comfortable about Mr. President that his infamous alleged white van squad won’t give us a ride for publishing what we write, and I get that I can write this piece with my real name and publish it in my own blog. I am yet to see if I would have the same ease and comfort to write my second post about Mr President. You can witness whether we have that freedom if you won’t see me writing a second post. You can never trust politicians, can you?

I would still love to call the President fondly as Gota as I was used to in my previous posts about him before the presidential election but now I have to call him Mr. President instead just to keep the protocol intact. Besides, you can’t take too many risks at the same time, can you? This is the same country a top level journalist was fired from a leading newspaper a couple of decades ago for writing ජනාධිපතිවරයා (the president) instead of ජනාධිපතිතුමා when mentioning the late president while he was in power around 1980s.

Mr. President’s First Month in Office – 1 – Making of a CEO to run “Sri Lanka Incorporated”

Mr. President’s First Month in Office – 2 – Fresh Hopes, Probably for the First Time Since Independence

Mr. President’s First Month in Office – 3 – Suicidal Tax Cuts and Reductions

Mr. President’s First Month in Office – 4 – Disappointment in the Appointment of a Massive Cabinet

Mr. President’s First Month in Office – 5 – A Brand New Constitution