Last week's wedding of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa's youngest son in Tangalle saw an interesting mix of invitees who were both conspicuous by their presence as well as their absence. Present was Rajapaksa’s political nemesis Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe along with a bunch of his party MPs while the absence of several prominent SLFP MPs raised quite a few eyebrows. Political commentators with an eye on the wedding guest list have been speculating on a new alliance of convenience which maybe in the making for the sole purpose of abolishing the executive presidency. How such an effort will gain traction given the recent events remains to be seen. A presidential election has to be announced in the latter part of this year and therefore any attempts at abolishing the post needs to be expedited so as to spare the country an election that none of the parties have wanted for the past 25 years, at least on paper. However, such abhorrence has not deterred either of the main parties from nominating candidates and clamouring to have their man or woman, sit on that all powerful chair. It is becoming quite obvious that for all his talk of being a one-term president and the last executive president, Maithripala Sirisena is well and truly gearing up for a second run in the job. So far, the President has done a poor job of shielding his craving for it. So much so that he has not hesitated to plunge the country into turmoil by sending the elected government home just so that he curries favour with his sworn enemy to secure endorsement as that party’s presidential nominee. It is also becoming increasingly clear that Sirisena is asserting control over the Government by appointing himself as the competent authority to decide on key appointments to state institutions. Although late in the day, he seems determined to assert his presidential powers in an endeavour to create an enduring legacy that would garner mass support. He has a classic example to emulate on how Mahinda Rajapaksa used the war victory to further his presidential career. It seems that Sirisena has now made the war on drugs his pet project which he hopes will deliver similar results. His recent meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines and his unbridled support of the Filipino strongman’s brutally ruthless war on drugs seems to have been a well-orchestrated attempt to draw parallels locally even at the expense of foreign condemnation just so long as the intended purpose is served. There is no doubt that there is mass support for the eradication of the drug menace as demonstrated by President Duarte’s case and it is this success that Sirisena hopes to convert into electoral dividends at the next election. The recent spate of detections has been nothing short of stunning, purely going by the quantities involved and the mind boggling street value of the drugs seized. Such success is unprecedented and the credit for it should go to the President for his resolve to tackle the problem even though the motives may be questionable. It is also pertinent to question as to what happens to the drugs that are seized. It is no secret that a portion of it makes its way back into the market and any real effort to end this menace must ensure that the process is foolproof and no leaks could take place. However, despite the success of the operations, the President’s bona fides on the drug war has been called into question on more than one occasion where talk has not matched action. For instance he insisted that he would not hesitate to impose the death penalty on those who have been convicted and are currently on death row. He went one step further and alleged that the only reason why he couldn’t implement this was because files of convicted drug dealers had been withheld or had disappeared from prisons. The Justice Ministry however was quick to point out that the President’s allegations were far from the truth. In fact, following Sirisena’s proclamation last year that he was ready to implement the death penalty, the Justice Ministry compiled a list of death row prisoners and this list was sent to the Attorney General’s Department on 4 July, 2018. Thereafter, on 25 July, 2018, Cabinet decided to immediately implement the death penalty on those who continue to engage in the trade from within the prisons. As at 13 October, 2018, the Justice Ministry sent a list of 19 names to the Presidential Secretariat for immediate implementation of the death penalty while on 31 December, 2018, another list of 48 names were sent to the Presidential Secretariat for the same purpose. Currently, 67 death row inmates are at the mercy of the President. We are not suggesting that these inmates should be put to death forthwith but our contention is that the President must be ready to walk the talk, for otherwise, his proclamations will be considered as empty rhetoric, just as much as when he said that Ranil Wickremesinghe would never be reappointed Prime Minister again in his life time. If the war on drugs is to be Sirisena’s legacy then this war, just as much as the one in the North, has to be won one way or another. It is no secret that drug barons find the prisons a much safer environment than being in the open where their security is under constant threat. Therefore, operating from prisons with the connivance of corrupt officials is the safest way to run their deadly business. One way of putting a stop to this is by executing the death penalty on those who have been convicted and whose opportunity for appeal has also been exhausted. With the Attorney General having given the nod and Cabinet having sanctioned the list, it is now up to the President to finally walk the talk and ensure the drug menace is eradicated while also electorally benefitting from the process.