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Once again, we are trying to choose the lesser evil
I am not sure why the Editor of The Sunday Times invited me from among the 15,044,490 voters in this country to express my opinions in his esteemed newspaper just before the elections. Pressed for an answer, he gave an excuse about ‘Maco’ (the Elections Commissioner, I presume) not allowing him to seek the views of those affiliated with political parties because campaigning finishes forty eight hours before polling begins. Hats off to Maco, I say, because at least some laws are being implemented to the letter!
I am one of those who might be called a ‘floating’ voter. All those people who claim to be election analysts seem to think that I am the type of voter who decides the outcome of the election. But you know what, I am a bit confused these days and I still haven’t decided who I should vote for — and I have got only a few hours more to decide. I will try to explain why.
On the one hand, we have Mahinda and his Blue boys. They have been telling us that we should vote for them to protect the country that they won back from the terrorists. I am not so convinced about that. What we know is that instead of protecting the country that they won back from the terrorists, they went on to plunder its assets whenever and wherever they could. That is one of the main reasons why Mahinda was shown the door on January 8.
Now, if he had opted to retire to Medamulana and allowed Maithri to choose some new faces to contest under the Blue banner instead of reverting to the ‘usual suspects’, that would have been a different kettle of fish. But, looking at the thousands of handbills that arrive at my doorstep daily asking for my vote, the photographs I see are mostly of people who have been taken to the FCID for one reason or another!
Now, don’t get me wrong. I have the greatest respect for Mahinda because he did what four Presidents before him couldn’t do; he defeated the LTTE. But then, I suspect he began to believe — or was made to believe by the limpets clinging on to his saatakaya — that he could be King for life: the 18th Amendment, the songs about Maha Rajaaneni and all the rest of it. That is when he lost the plot. Defeat on the 8th of January should have sobered him but it hasn’t. That is why he is back from Kurunegala, far away from his home turf at Hambantota much like Kumar Sangakkara returning for a farewell test at Galle. Well, Sanga hasn’t done very well and is likely to end up on the losing side; maybe there is a moral in that story!
On the other side we have Ranil and his Green brigade, now tinged with a bit of Blue (Rajitha, Arjuna et al), Saffron (Champika’s crowd) and a different shade of Green (the always flexible Rauff). My worry is that, with all these colours getting mixed up, whether we as a country will be marooned.
Why I say that is because in the last six months when the Greens held office aided and abetted by their partners, there was quite a bit of chaos in the country. True, they didn’t have the numbers in Parliament, so they couldn’t get anything meaningful done. Yes, they did pass a diluted version of the 19th Amendment (thanks to the Mahinda controlled majority) and restore some respect to the Police and the Judiciary. Even ‘Maco’ is flexing his muscles because of that; during Mahinda’s time, he was as meek as a mouse!
Nevertheless, they didn’t give the impression that they were an efficient government that was good at getting a job of work of done. For instance, I am old enough to remember the 21st of July, 1977 when JR swept in to power after a landslide victory. The six months that followed was like a revolution with the Old Man ringing the changes that would transform the country into a modern, open economy. We expected something similar from the 8th of January but what we got instead was a government that was struggling to keep its head above water to avoid being drowned by the Mahinda controlled majority in Parliament.
Then there was that sordid story about the Treasury Bonds. I am no financial expert; nor am I a UNP lawyer appointed to probe the issue. All I can I say is that it looked ugly and the decent thing to do was for the Governor to step down. It will cost Greens a half a million votes and maybe even a few seats. If they fall tantalisingly short of the magic number of 113 seats, they can blame it on one man: that chap Mahendran!
Now, I am not the socialist type and I have regarded every revolutionary from Lenin to Castro with a healthy degree of suspicion but I must admit that at this election, I have been intrigued by the Reds and that young man, Anura Kumara. I have always dismissed them as of being of nuisance value but this time around, they appear to have changed their game plan and come across as being worthy of consideration. Certainly, they don’t come tainted with allegations of corruption and appear to have realised that power does not flow from the barrel of a gun, contrary to what they believed in ’71 and ’89.
But, I am also old enough to remember those bad old days of the Reds. I am also a bit peeved that they oppose everything and never seem to want to take responsibility. At the last elections, for instance, they asked us not to vote for Mahinda but didn’t ask us to vote for Maithri, despite not having a candidate of their own. They didn’t want a portfolio in the ‘Yahapaalanaya’ government either. If they want a stake in government, I daresay, now is the time to stand up and be counted.
The votes certainly will be counted tomorrow night and I am still struggling to make up my mind about who I should mark that cross for on the ballot paper. And, I am considerably saddened by the thought that, sixty seven years after independence, all I am doing is trying to choose the lesser evil.