How will you vote?
View(s):You have heard their respective cases. And their case – where there was one put forward: Good, bad, or ugly – against the other side. Now you have to decide; vote on it; literally cast your ballot in less than a week. And you don’t know where to begin; make the start; end the long wait. You might help heart, hands, and mind along the way to the polling station by examining the evidence along a few of the lines drawn in the sand by the candidates themselves. And where intellect or ratiocination fails, use imagination instead to body forth some sort of verdict as the waiting ends. You will no doubt decide in the nation’s best interests!
Change/stability
The sharpest clarion has been for “change”. Whether it is a change for the “better” has raised red flags for the regime and the general public alike. And the incumbents may have the edge in this respect. The opposition coalition has singularly failed to delineate how it will effect the sweeping reforms it has promised (e.g. “reforming” the Executive, in some way), and why this – if it eventuates – will improve the status quo, if at all (“ensuring” power checks and balances – how?).
Arguing for a regime-change is not quite the same as assuring political-culture change. Scratch a coalitionist from this alliance and, like any other from the other coalition, is he or she not likely to bleed corruption, criminality of one degree or another and cost-of-living bungling all over the House carpet? The incumbent case for continuity of the regime being a bulwark against “western imperialism” and “renascent Eelamism” makes some sense, mitigated only by the spectre of “China rising” if things go on the way they are.
Conventional wisdom: Change is a must…
Devil’s advocate: The more things change, the more they might stay the same…
Boom or bust
Part of the extended argument of the change-stability matrix above has been whether Growth, Development, Progress (the new national GDP and election mantra) will continue apace. The Old Guard has pulled out all stops to assure the polity that it will go on, even if the attendant (ahem) “admin costs” will hardly go. The Grand Old Party, which is the economic think-tank of the new coalition, is running with the socialist hare and hunting with the neo-conservative hounds (although enterprising analysts who have actually read the lines – and in-between them – think there is now hardly any policy differential between the old UNP remnant and the new JVP’s parvenus).
Thus the citizenry keen on not losing momentum might rest assured that under either administration, development will muddle along in a manner that we might not notice (even if the Eastern Dragon loses some of its long-term interests).
Conventional wisdom: “GDP” is good, “GDP” is right. (With apologies to Gordon Gekko.)
Devil’s advocate: Growth with equity/equitability means governments must fail at this… and be changed every 5-6 years, like some long-term “national nappy”, when politicos excrete all over it in pursuit of their own or executive agendas.
Democracy vs. Dynasty
Whoever framed the argument this way had a sense of alliteration (a 2D one, at that), but little or no sense of the course of Sri Lankan politics over the past 65+ years. It’s been dynastic from day one, with the Senanayakes accounting for some 10 years, the Bandaranaikes being in some form of power for 23+, the Uncle-Nephew Patricians a combined 14, etc. But as with Roman republicans entertaining kings in all but name, many Sri Lankans who think they love democracy more but decency less, kick against a possible dynasty emerging when “family business” is mentioned. Advocates for regime-change as stymieing an emerging and potentially long-lasting dynasty, while sending a “republican” message to pretenders to the throne, may be somewhat disingenuous about the “ancien regime” and its descendants waiting in the wings. Fickleness, thy name is woman?
Conventional wisdom: Liberté. Egalité. Fraternité.
Devil’s advocate: Get a lifé. Democrats can be absolutely corrupted as much as despots, given enough time and money or sufficiently powerful opportunities.
Rule of Law & Order
They have to be pulling our leg, right? The less said about “relative merits” the better! Really, when it comes to “rule by law” – or selective application of constitutional writ – there’s a closer race being run between representatives of one cabal/clique and the other coven/claque. Whether it’s tweaking amendments to suit one’s political ambitions or rescuing errant politicos’ sons from remand without due recourse to the magistracy, we have seen what power can do to erstwhile upright law-abiding citizens and their kith and kin. Let’s not even mention state-endorsed robber barons in the corporate sector pillaging and plundering like the new colonisers they are, the drug mafia, gambling and prostitution rings, and bribery as the butter on just about everyone’s bread. Let’s get real.
That said, there’s a lot more blood on this regime’s hands – in defence of state or in advancement of personal agendas – than any other in our chequered history. (As you go to vote, the day, five years ago, could remind you of some of the egregious unsolved murder-mysteries under the incumbents’ watch.)
Conventional wisdom: Law-and-order has come a-cropper in this country.
Devil’s advocate: There is still rule-by-law (which is more unjust) – that’s what must go.
There. Said my piece! Let us depart in peace not having seen even a myopic glimpse of the salvation all our messiahs have promised will come to pass…