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TIMES POSTCARD
Already, we are missing elections
By Rajpal Abeynayake
The economy is not doing very well we hear, after the election.
Not that it has anything to do with the winner, poor man.
But, there is no trickle down.

My friend, let's just call him Mr. U, says that there is nothing trickling down to him now that the polls are over and done with.
No money for pasting posters – and no money for tearing off posters. His goats were well fed also, on a diet of poster paste.

All that vanished in a mater of twenty-four hours.
He now wants to suggest to the Chamber of Commerce that the only way to keep the Sri Lankan economy buoyant is to have one poll every year – this is at the very least mind you.

If there are holidays during the middle of the week in China, the Chinese sometimes give the whole week off. They do this, because people travel around during holidays, take time off to see their grandmothers in the interior – and therefore spend more money and stimulate the economy.

Sri Lankans are not worried about grandmothers - but they do worry a lot about their politics.

This means that Parliament gets dissolved every now and then like aspirin, and there are elections to disturb everybody's equilibrium not to mention their spending habits.

Usually the stock-market hits a low when there is an election announced.
Common sense says that this is a queer initial reaction to major and imminent phenomenon. For instance, before the tsunami lashed our coasts, the sea actually receded, and people went to see the sea fold back by miles.

It's the same with this election business. Stock markets plummet when elections are announced – but that's because big people do not see the trickle down that's coming. They do not see the paappa money that is going to all the poster-pasters, and the number of goats that are going to be fed which will produce more goat's milk that even Hettigoda can imagine producing with all his cows.

Where would all this money have gone if an election were not held every year??
The answer is not blowing in the wind my friend - it's obvious. This money would have gone into the accounts of some big rajahs and others.
But come election time, they shake their money trees. This is age old wisdom, really. That's why Dahanayake said in Galle once upon a time about his rival "he's shaking a money tree — catch all of it, and vote for me.''
Nowadays people have seen the money trees being shaken – and decided they don't care a hoot who wins. The elections are the only trickle down economics there is in this country, period.

If you want something like a floor diagram to prove it I can give you one sometime, just call me. See, the big rajahs pay the television boys big money for the advertisements. The television boys open more channels and buy more airtime. They pay their producers. The producers go and spend their money in the village seeing their grandmothers.

There is trickle down for you. So we are all going to ask the new President who is elected – whatever you do, secure your post, and have elections every year. Dissolve Parliament like an aspirin – fast if you will, as long as you don't dissolve the Parliament building. What more vox populi do you want?

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