5th Column
Carrying the cross of another election
View(s):My Dear Voter,
I thought I must write to you since you are going to the polling booths next Saturday if you happen to be living in either the Wayamba, Central or Northern provinces. They say any elections are better than no elections, but I am not sure of that any more.
Why it was just the other day that Mahinda maama declared that he was not a dictator because he is always holding one election or another. That is true indeed but some are asking why he should make such an announcement. After all, Mahatma Gandhi didn’t go around saying “I’m not a terrorist.”
Anyway, when elections are held it is your duty to vote. If you don’t, you shouldn’t complain later. And, if you are living in the North I don’t envy you because the whole world is watching your election with interest. Why, Aunty Navi is more concerned about it than what is happening in Syria!
If you are a voter in the North, you don’t have much choice do you? On the one hand you have Sampanthan’s boys who don’t even sneeze without asking New Delhi. They have got a former judge to head their list but I am not sure whether he can do justice to the role he has been asked to play.
It is true that they have a right to demand some powers and manage their own affairs. Some would argue that this is what they are doing but at least some of them seem to think that they can eventually get what the Tigers were fighting for. And we all know how that enterprise ended, don’t we?
What annoys many people in the South is not that they are making all these demands but their tendency to run to India or the UN or to America whenever there is a dispute here. Yet, all those invitations to talk to those in Colombo seem to fall on deaf ears.
But if you are a voter in the North I suppose most of you will vote for Sampanthan’s clan because you trust them just a little bit more than Douglas and the boys in Blue. I must also admit that although those in Blue won the war, they seem to be quite at a loss in peacetime, not knowing what to do next!
Even then, this is the first election of this type in more than twenty-five years, so you shouldn’t be complaining. No matter how you look at it you can’t deny that the North is in much better shape than it was a few years ago with bombs and landmines exploding every minute.
The real bargaining will start only after the election, when Sampanthan’s boys will assume office and start asking for more. I hope that at least then, they will talk with those in the South instead of running to India like a bullied child running to the Principal without first seeking help from the class teacher.
Now, if you are a voter in Wayamba or in the Central Province, you don’t need to worry that much, do you? Most of you would only have to decide between the Blues and the Greens. It is even easier if you are in Wayamba-and I will tell you why.
In most of our elections we have to decide whether to vote for the Blues or the Greens-and sometimes even the Reds-but at next week’s elections in Wayamba you don’t even have to do that. It looks as if even if you wish to vote for the Greens you have to for the Blues!
Why, two of the three main contenders are Dayasiri and Johnny’s son and both Dayasiri and Johnny were Greens who later turned Blue. So, I suppose the only real decision you have to make is who gets your manaapey-and that is what all these candidates are spending millions of rupees for.
Dayasiri told us when he crossed over from the Greens to the Blues that he would be Chief Minister. Now, if he doesn’t get that job, it would be funny, don’t you think, because he will be becoming just another ‘Palaa Babaa’, when he could have been a leading figure in the Greens?
We are guaranteed plenty of entertainment at Wayamba which I am sure will more than live up to its expectations of a free, fair and peaceful election. No one expects matters to get so heated up in the Central Province but even there, we may see a ‘free-for-all’ rather than ‘free and fair’, I’m told.
So, dear voter, wherever you are, be it in the North, Wayamba or the Central Province, I think you should make that journey to the polling booth to mark that all important cross even though you will be either holding your nose and voting for one party or closing your eyes and voting for the other party!
Yours truly,
Punchi Putha
PS-While you are doing all this, dear voter, spare a thought for the Greens and the Green Leader. Whenever there is an election like this, the Greens lose and that party wants him replaced. He somehow survives-until the next election which he then loses again!
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