LET’S MAKE IT A PEOPLE’S VICTORY
By the time this editorial is read this morning a majority of readers would have some idea about the political party or the coalition that would rule this country for the next five years or at least for the next four years as permitted by the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
Some people by this time or by this evening would be left heartbroken with the political party and/or the candidates they voted for not having been elected, while others would be elated for obvious reasons.
Representative democracy is such a gamble that in most cases people by voting in large numbers would elect the wrong party and the politicians to decide the people’s destiny. At the same time one might argue that where Sri Lanka is concerned voters had failed at every election since Independence, because none of the political parties had fulfilled most of their major electoral promises after being elected to office and as a result the country has been lagging behind many other countries with similar natural resources and geographical positioning, as shown by several social indicators.
Hence, disappointments because of electoral failures at yesterday’s election for the 15th parliament should not disturb the tranquility of one’s mind, since the country at large might not lose much owing to those defeats. On the other hand the bone of contention on the failure to fulfil the promises and people’s hopes by the political parties and politicians warn us to be cautious in rejoicing over electoral victories and reposing hopes on politicians.
No party has been successful in bringing in peace and in eradicating corruption, the narcotics business, crimes and most importantly reduce the level of poverty during the past 67 years, despite many political parties boasting about development projects during their tenure. Every time when there had been a regime change, fresh hopes have been stirred up even among the people who did not vote for the new rulers, but only to fade away not in years but in weeks thus it goes without saying that this is a stark reminder that the people should be cautious in reposing their hopes on politicians after elections.
Political history since Independence has it that victory as well as defeat at elections do not make much of a difference to the lives of ordinary men and women except for that of a few henchmen of would-be rulers whose lifestyles would take on a luxurious tint soon after elections. That fact alone stresses the need to maintain unity and peace among the political party supporters during and after elections.
It has also been noticed that party leaders, national or regional have not been arrested, leave alone penalized for election violence during the past 67 years since Independence, except for few instances such as the Mulleriyawa shooting that killed former presidential advisor Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra during the Local Government elections in 2011. It had been the ordinary voters who had been attacked, killed and sentenced to imprisonment or even to death apart from arson attacks on their properties because of the violence during elections, though they do not get the real benefits of electoral victories.This again asserts the need for a violence-free environment after the election irrespective of the party that would be victorious today.