Mrs. Anumaana has become rather skeptical about this business of government seeking a two- thirds majority at the parliamentary election in order to amend the constitution. So many different rationales have been put forward in support of this project tht she has become a tad suspicious about the real reason for it.
Susil Premajayantha has asked for the two thirds majority in order to return to the electoral system that has an MP representing each electorate. Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena wants a two thirds majority in order to establish good governance through village councils. Pole-vault Johnston wants it to develop the country. Basil Rajapaksa wants it to promote Mahinda Chinthanaya. But did minister Fowzie let the cat out of the bag when he asked the people who gathered at Vihara Maha Devi open-air auditorium to give them a two thirds majority to amend the constitution “so that Mahinda Rajapaksa can be president for another 25 years??”
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| A sea of posters in Colombo - with so many promises |
Now, Mrs. Anumaana knows that politicians tend to become more economical with the truth than usual, when election time comes around. She is resigned to this sad reality. Her complaint is just that if they MUST lie, at least they could all tell the same lie, in a uniform manner, without insulting her intelligence with a variety of stories that obviously cannot all be true at the same time.
There are so many candidates and so many political parties and groups contesting this time that it has become impossible for even a civic-minded citizen like Mrs. Anumaana to keep up with the campaign trail. She sympathises not only with her fellow constituents but also with the Elections Commissioner, who has been challenged as never before, what with four-foot long ballot papers, lack of ballot boxes to accommodate these copious amounts of paper, unauthorized election offices popping up at every street corner etc., etc…
There are so many takers for so few prizes that she is in fact tempted to make a suggestion to him, that the job might be better handled by the Lotteries Board. There will be an array of 836 candidates from 38 parties and groups in the Colombo district, of whom just 19 will get elected. In Amparai there are 660 competing for seven spots; in Gampaha 567 for 18, Kurunegala 558 for 15, and so on. Will she have to do a “tuck-tick-took” type exercise to mark her ballot, she pondered.
Such a long list of candidates, but not one had come knocking on her door at any point to explain why she should vote for them, Mrs. Anumaana reflected. Perhaps they were busy tracking down their fellow party candidates to break their knees so that they won’t compete for the “manaape.” Then of course they had to visit the temple to obtain the blessings of all the devas in the pantheon.
And oh, what about arranging for the TV crews to be there in full force at the time of the visit? (otherwise there would be no point, no?) The future representatives of the people obviously had too many important tasks at hand right now, and it was too much to expect them to find time for the voters, she reasoned. Anyway she too had more important things to do than sit around explaining to total strangers why she would not vote for them.
Her time would be better spent drafting that letter to Ban Ki Moon regarding a job for her son. A bit of foreign travel would be just the ticket to round off Sunil’s education, she thought. Mrs. Anumaana believed that if Sunil were to contest the election he would win the poster-war hands down. Mind you, that would be without any face-lift, hair-dye or image make-over.
Sunil thinks Mrs. Anumaana too should have got her name onto one of the numerous nomination lists. He points out that she is well qualified to contest because she has done athletics and acted in plays (in school) and also played cricket (for the office team). His crowning argument however is that her name starts with an “ayanna” and it would therefore appear on top of the candidates’ list, and so she was SURE to win. But Mrs. Anumaana has her doubts. |
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