In a matter of two weeks, President Pallewatte Gamaralalage Maithripala Yapa Sirisena has broken every promise he gave the electorate, sent home the man who made him President, and held 21 million people hostage by locking out their representatives from Parliament and ultimately sending them home. He has thrown the country, lock, stock and barrel, from the frying pan straight into the fire by dissolving Parliament as he would dissolve an aspirin for a headache. Sirisena seems to have developed a penchant for springing a surprise every Friday night. It was on a Friday night that he first plunged the country into chaos with his arbitrary sacking of the incumbent Prime Minister and last Friday night he dissolved Parliament. He also boasted that he has “many more trump cards” up his sleeve and the country would have to wait till next Friday night to find out what’s next. Meanwhile, Sirisena’s unprecedented move of sacking the Prime Minister, appointing his own kitchen Cabinet and sending 225 MPs home, have all been deemed unconstitutional and has brought the country to the brink of anarchy and lawlessness with people on the street openly questioning the legality and morality of the President’s actions. The 19th Amendment, which he himself introduced, stipulates that Parliament cannot be dissolved before the completion of four-and-a-half years unless under specified circumstances which are not applicable in this instance. Sirisena’s handling of the country as his private plaything will therefore have dire if not far reaching consequences. It is not a lie that Sirisena has blatantly lied and relied on one lie to cover up another, beginning with the reason for sacking Ranil Wickremesinghe, which he claimed was an assassination plot targeting him. Two weeks later we are yet to hear of any progress in the investigation into this matter. The man who claimed such a plot existed has all but disappeared. The lie was exposed when Sirisena publicly proclaimed that he had been headhunting for a prime minister for the past eight months, long before the assassination plot bogey surfaced. After appointing Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister, he said he had secured a parliamentary majority with 113 MPs supporting him. This too was a blatant lie with no such support in the bag, despite the millions of rupees on offer. There is recorded evidence publicly available of such offers being made by at least one senior minister, but no one has thought it fit to investigate the matter. He then lied in first stating that Parliament would be convened on 7 November and lied again by stating it would be convened on the 14th. He then carried out the biggest lie by dissolving Parliament, which he himself said should not be dissolved before the passage of four-and-a-half years as per the 19th Amendment. He also lied when he swore to uphold the Constitution on 9 January, 2015. He has now brazenly violated the Constitution, not once, but twice within a period of two weeks, making this hallowed document not worth the paper it is written on.The danger is that Sirisena’s serial lying is not likely to abate anytime soon. The arbitrary acts of bringing key state institutions and departments such as the Police and the State Printing Corporation under his direct command has more or less paved the way for dictatorial rule with the country being exclusively governed by presidential fiat for the past two weeks. One gets the impression that Sirisena has little understanding of the implications of his actions, especially on the fragile economy of the country, which is likely to see its most turbulent period in the days ahead. To make matters worse, Sri Lanka’s third biggest foreign exchange earner – the tourism industry – has been dealt a body blow with the peak December season in tatters. Multi billion rupee investments in hotels and tourism infrastructure now hang in the balance with the highly security sensitive tourism industry in disarray. The run up to the general election on 5 January will most likely be the most volatile campaign period this country has witnessed post-independence. Given this scenario, tourists are mostly likely to bypass Sri Lanka in favour of other destinations that can assure security. Ever since President Maithripala Sirisena decided to wreak constitutional havoc by precipitating this unwarranted crisis, he has slowly but steadily dug himself into a hole, and every word he has uttered since has pushed him deeper in to it. The speech that he delivered at the “Ratama Rakina Jana Mahimaya” rally last Monday was laced with self-destructive material that may well bury his electoral ambitions. The sheer vituperative nature of the speech, which to most right-thinking people was unbecoming of a head of state, left civil society aghast, and helped show the man in his true colours. UNP rank and file, already seething with anger following the President’s unconstitutional conduct, were made to see red with the now infamous “butterfly” comments, and social media has been flooded with equally offensive responses. If that were not enough, the revelation that Speaker Karu Jayasuriya and Sajith Premadasa were both approached by him to take on the premiership as far back as eight months ago has backfired with the duo taking the moral high ground that they stood by the UNP Leader in the face of the President’s maneuvering. In fact, the UNP has received an unexpected political boost with the President’s comments indicating that the party remains united and has helped dispel talk of a leadership crisis within. The unkindest cut however was the presidential proclamation that Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was seated just a few feet away at Monday’s rally, was only the third choice for the premiership and was occupying that position by default – due to the refusal of the UNP duo. For all intents and purposes, the Presidential claim was made to calm the nerves of the 6,217,162 voters who had been questioning the rationale behind Rajapaksa’s appointment. Continuing his self-destructive rant, Sirisena then proceed to put his foot right into his mouth by declaring “113 api dan hadagena ivarai”, meaning “we have now got 113 MPs”. However, the dissolution of Parliament on Friday was the clearest indication that this was far from the truth. The fact that the man who, in his first address to the nation after assuming power on 11 January, 2015, pledged to transfer “unlimited powers vested with the executive president to Parliament, Cabinet and the judiciary”, is now claiming unspecified powers citing the same Constitution is indeed ironic. For its part, the beleaguered UNP has now been presented a golden opportunity to turn the tide in its favour at the upcoming polls. In order to capitalise on public sentiment, it must pave the way for the young brigade who have toiled for the party and resurrected it from ruin to take over leadership, while the seniors take on the role of mentors. The current Party Leader must accept the fact that he is no longer the most attractive candidate and the sooner he accepts this, the better for the party. Until such time that sanity prevails and a stable government is established in the first week of January next year, the country will have to put up with a president playing with fire.