Salvaging the disastrous reputation that the government acquired in
Wayamba was a high -wire act. But, there can be no doubt that the Chandrika
Kumaratunga government succeeded in pulling it off, with a little help
from the opposition, that is. At the end of Wayamba, the reputation of
the government lay in tatters. The government's own favourite media brigade,
the so called Free Media Movement and that whole caboodle had the Kumaratunga
administration seething in embarrassment.
But, the state's act of damage control was aggressive, and was helped
along by mediamen who overreached, overreacted and were over the top.
Mediamen (and others) who constituted the so called CMEV (Centre for
Monitoring Election Violence) couldn't have been all that blissfully unaware
that agents of certain UNP candidates were in cahoots with them in locations
such as Badulla for example. The CMEV, this time, didn't seem to get the
hang of the idea that justice must not only be done, but that it must appear
to be done too.
The explanation of the election monitors that " its natural that
the opposition UNP will jump our bandwagon" didn't quite sell. After
Wayamba, the CMEV and other election monitors were seen to be going out
of their way to say that the "UNP was not associated ''in their election
monitoring effort. But, the fact that the monitors went out of the way
in explaining this was, in some ways, telling. Ideally, the monitors shouldn't
have had to, or bothered to explain that the "UNP had no truck"
with them. Ideally, the question shouldn't have arisen.
But, after Wayamba the monitors went out of their way to disassociate
themselves with the UNP, for reasons that may have some interesting psychological
underpinnings. The monitors had to show that they had no truck with the
UNP. In most instances, they wouldn't have had a direct link to the UNP
— and only the colossally biased would say that the Wayamba election was
fair.
The fact that Wayamba was rigged was accepted by most right thinking
people in the cabinet, including the President. Only a few hot - blooded
cabinet diehards demurred in joining that consensus. Wayamba was rigged,
and the media played a not inconsiderable part in exposing that fact. But,
having done that, the election monitors couldn't dispel the doubts that
hung about them.
They could not, to put it in the neo-colloquial idiom, assuage doubts
about exactly "where they were coming from." Some of these doubts
would have stemmed from the fact that there could have been an easy nexus
forged between non - governmental organisations, and anybody who wanted
to see the UNP back in power. With so many capitalists wanting to see the
UNP back in power, in other words, you wouldn't know where the money for
the NGO's are coming from. The monitors had press conferences to dispel
these doubts, but, though they were able to douse the fire emanating from
the rumours, they weren't exactly able to clear the air.
This may indubitably have to do with appearances, and factors related
to human psychology more than anything else. The CMEV monitors were comprised
of men and women who have had their lives practically entwined with NGO's
and NGO sponsored causes. The funding for NGO's come from foreign sources,
not merely in trickles, but in major draughts. So, people who have had
their lives and causes pegged to NGO money couldn't instantly shed the
image of being "NGO wallahs."
Even if these men in the NGO's could indicate that they were clean and
above board (not the easiest task anyway), they couldn't say beyond any
reasonable doubt that the funds that were coming to the NGO's were clean,
or that the funding sources, if not the monitors themselves, had ulterior
motives.
If the funding sources indeed had ulterior motives, these funders only
had to pull out a few bucks the proper way, to influence the whole monitoring
process. With or without the active connivance of the monitors themselves,
interested parties funding NGO's could have successfully manipulated their
own agenda, which could have been to bring the UNP back in to power in
the provinces. All this is definitely not to say that this is indeed what
happened.
It's just that the monitors couldn't get out of the NGO trap. The NGO''
have a pervasive influence. The crude but evocative Maoist aphorism was
that if you sleep with the dogs, you will wake up with the fleas.
The election monitors had slept with the NGO's for so long, that they
couldn't effectively counter the governments attack that was coming their
way, even if they were innocent of the charges. When there is any association
with the NGO's, there would be an automatic presumption of dubious motives
attached. (Especially when NGO associates keep tilting at things as sensitive
as monitoring elections.) This presumption of doubt couldn't be properly
rebutted by the election monitors.
Moreover, the election monitors didn't adequately help their cause by
making at least some realistic concessions. For instance, the concession
that the provincial elections held on the 6th, last week, were relatively
fair, was made only by PAFFREL, one of the less NGO tainted election monitors.
The other election monitors such as CMEV were not seen to be making
even the basic concession that rigging, if in evidence, wasn't of a proportion
that was adequate to significantly change the outcome of the poll. (They
only allowed "that the elections were flawed, but not to the extent
that would render the outcome meaningless'' whatever that means.)
The pre-poll exchange of words between government and monitors may not
have been an even exchange . The government was aggressive in its spin,
and on a broader analysis, most ruling dispensations want the media to
"manufacture the consent" of the masses in order that they can
do what they want. (…see last weeks column on Chandrika Chomsky and the
media mafia.) But it's not merely through the media that power elite's
do their work, sometimes. Its possible that power elites of a different
hue, who wanted to see the UNP in power, backed the monitors either directly
or obliquely, perhaps without their knowledge, to make them do their work.
The monitors couldn't shake off such accusations ably. They certainly
lost this round of the exchange between monitors and the government by
being so antagonistic to the government, stung as they were by the government's
attacks. Their position against the government was so ossified, that by
last week they even refused to make some basic concessions. To say the
least, by taking this position, some monitors didn't help their cause.
Commentary
Editorial/Opinion Contents
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