O/L students cross over elections

With syllabuses yet to be completed and plans for last minute study in quandary, some 500,000 ordinary level students — most, if not all of them in the age group of 15-16 — feel the presidential election is being given priority at their expense.

The O/L examination which was scheduled to take place from December 11 to 24, was advanced by one week with the new dates fixed for December 6-17 so that schools could be used as polling booths or counting centres.

President of the Samastha Lanka Eksath Guru Sangamaya, Ven. Yalwe Pangnasekera Thera said election meetings and canvassing near exam centres and residential areas would drastically disturb the concentration of the students.

"I don't know how I am going to catch up on that one week's study," one student said. "I had planned to share out the time ahead until the exam, but suddenly we are told the exams are starting a week ahead of schedule," she said.

Chandani Pushpika from Dompe said she was not happy about this move because all her study plans had gone haywire. "I hope we will be given some relief to make up for this handicap," she said.

Duminda Madurapriya, a student of Maharagama Central said the authorities should view the exam as more important than elections.

"Since we had hoped to complete our studies by a certain date, this change in the exam schedule is disturbing. For authorities it may look like jsut five days, but for us it is a shattering blow," he said.

Saman Nalinda, another student from Maharagama Central was more indignant. "This is an injustice to the students," he said.

W.D. Eranga and A. Nuwan of Dharmaloka Junior School were among those who said they did not like the altering of the exam schedule.

Erandi Rajapakse, who is also sitting the exam, felt differently. She said she was happy that the exams had been brought forward because she could enjoy the festive season with her Christian friends.

But her mother Kanthi Rajapakse said the holding of elections during the festive season would be a problem.

"December is a bad month for elections, because of Christmas, fasting and the dawn of the millennium," Chandani R. Wijesundera, a housewife from Moratuwa said.

"People are not going to spend time attending election meetings and the turnout for voting will also be lower than in any other month," she said.

Many teachers are also of the view that advancing examinations will have a bad effect on students. They said they were in the process of completing the syllabuses and they now had to give students study leave one week ahead — whether the syllabuses were completed or not.

We also interviewed parents outside a school at Nugegoda. Many of them said they would prefer if the exams were held as previously scheduled and the elections in January.

"Now the children have to rush through their lessons and we as parents will have to do a hurried bit of shopping as well in view of the elections on December 21," one woman said.

G. W. Ramawickrama, a shop owner in Maharagama said exams or no exams, elections would definitely affect business during the festive season.

A leading departmental store manager said: "We will have to forget the usual Christmas rush and the extra sales we had been having during the festive season."

Businessman Rohan Wijesundera said it was not only the students sitting the O/L and the Christmas shoppers who were grumbling, but the traders also felt things would not be too rosy for them as at other times in December.

"If we have to go to the port for clearance, there will be hardly any work done once the nominations are over. It will be the same story in all government departments and ministries," he said.

M. H. S. Hameed, a businessman in Pettah said it was ridiculous to have an election during the Muslim month of fasting and on the eve of Christmas with exams being brought forward too.

Get rid of the rot that has come to stay

Notable upsurge in criminal activities, collapse of the rule of law, underworld gangs, gun culture and drug barons!

These are public concerns we read about daily in newspapers.

A recent United Nations Human rights development report titled "The Crisis of Governance" has revealed that 83 per cent of Sri Lankans thought the Police Department the most corrupt state machinery. That the Police Department is the most misused state machinery by its political masters has also to be underlined in this context. Yet the tendency is to put the responsibility solely on the Police.

One cannot over emphasize the important role of the Police in maintaining law and order. Let us first examine what would go to make the Police Department really serviceable:

efficiency, impartiality, honesty and discipline.

Let us next examine what the attendant factors are that contribute to achieving these qualities?

Selection, training, transfers and appointments within the service, and promotions.

Who has the authority in these matters?

In practice and according to the constitution, it is the minister. The Inspector General of Police has authority only when it comes to training – training is most important, one can argue, but when untrained stooges are promoted over the trained ones, what is the motivation for training?

May I at this point draw attention to the universally accepted fact that responsibility goes with authority and the two are inseparable. Now that would explain where the responsibility lies despite all we see and hear.

Since the seventies, when under the Republican Constitution all authority in matters of the Police Service came within the control of the minister, there has been an unanimous public outcry for an impartial Police service to maintain law and order.

Politicians sense this outcry only when it comes to election time, and that too when they are in the opposition. We have heard so much rhetoric in this regard in 1977 and again in 1995 from politicians.

In 1977, President J.R. Jayewardene romped into power promising a Dharmishta Society in which law and order was to prevail. Soon after coming to power he did direct the police to do their job without fear or favour and undertook to see that there will be no political interference.

Accordingly he made public announcements directing all members of Parliament to refrain from interfering in Police work. We in the Police Service were thrilled and visualized a super image for the Police. Ana Seneviratne, who became Inspector General of Police was a happy man. He took the President's undertaking seriously and rigidly withstood any political interference in matters of transfers and appointments. But it did not take long before he suffered painful experiences compelling his rigid 'backbone' to flex. The rot set in slowly at the start, but slowly and steadily it became all politics again.

Great expectations were there again in 1995 that "the exercise and even institutionalization of brute force and coercion will be things of the past and a robustly fearless and genuinely independent public service will become a reality. How this was to be achieved was also spelt out in the form of a Constitutional Council the composition of which was most acceptable to all. The Constitutional Council was to appoint the members to the Public Service Commission, the Permanent Commission on Bribery and Corruption and a Permanent Police Commission. The relief expected from the Constitutional Council and the Permanent Commissions appointed by it was one of the key issues the public voted for in 1995.

Unfortunately the Constitutional Council did not become a reality and the law and order situation has deteriorated much further.The Public is now most disillusioned with election promises

Laws, rules and regulations to prevent the myriad corrupt practices and violations of human rights, were never lacking. But when corruption and violation of human rights are resorted to by the political masters and police officials, who will apply these laws, rules and regulations? .

What is required for the police is an authority independent of politics. A permanent Police Commission appointed by the proposed Constitutional Council consisting of the Executive President/ Prime Minister; the Leader of the Opposition; two retired judges of the Supreme Court; the Speaker of the House of Representatives; representatives of Political parties having seats in Parliament, and other ex-officio members depending on the prevailing Constitutional Structure of the Government, should meet this requirement.

It is up to the public to obtain an irrevocable commitment in this regard without leaving room for it to be mixed up with any package types from where it may not come forth.

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