No Protection of the Constitution...

SRI LANKANS LED BY ELECTION TO DROWNING BY THE PIED PIPER UNDER UNIVERSAL JURISDICTION

As we go into elections, one candidate promises to release all soldiers lawfully convicted to jail terms. Another candidate vowed that “He was ready to take responsibility on any allegations made against the Sri Lankan Security Forces and suffer any punishment on behalf of them.” They promise to break the law for our votes. It can bring about “attempt to” charges if our Attorney General is good and conspiracy charges against a candidate who promises to let murderers loose. Together we Sri Lankan like the rats in the Pied Piper of Hamelin, are being led to the infamy of universal jurisdiction of international courts as the sane voice of Mangala Samaraweera warns us.

In essence, this election is about promising to break laws to win votes. Surely there are laws against promising to break laws? The dark policies being promised threaten minorities in a communal electorate and we fail to see the gravity and iniquity of the policies being promised. The point is easily lost because Sinhalese candidates are promising favours to those who killed Tamils. To put it starkly with clarity, what if a candidate campaigns saying instead of what is being promised against Tamils, “Vote for me (a Sinhalese) and I will hang my opponent (who is also a Sinhalese), when I am elected?” We would then see how horrible and unlawful this election is. That is exactly what some leading candidates are promising the electorate, but against Tamils.

Is the election about the Commission presiding over this vulgar competition to outdo each other in breaking laws at Tamil expense? Is that being a good Commission? I am advised that a good member of the Commission does not comment on these things. However, the Commission’s constitutional mandate is to uphold all election laws. I assert that the Commission is failing the nation in not framing the legality of election promises in context and hiding behind an old-fashioned fuddy-daddy notion of propriety. As a result, serious personnel issues at the Election Commission that threaten the integrity of elections, and mistakes in past elections remain un-discussed and undisclosed to a public that has a right to be informed.

There is no protection of the law for the tens of thousands of Tamils murdered by our soldiers. There is no protection as we wait to see who will win to release convicted murderers to run amok causing havoc.

Remember: The constitution gives us the law. The law gives us elections and the ballot to choose our government. We must use our ballot. Saying they are all bad and not going to vote, is to allow the most wicked to come into office and claim our endorsement. We must not boycott the elections which still offers us a choice, however limited. The Sinhalese parties have calculated that rather than working for peace and justice, there is more to be gained by pandering to Sinhala communalism.

I thought we – all good and decent Sri Lankans – had an easy choice of voting against the killers and rogues asking for our vote. Now we have candidates vowing to protect killers. It is not Hobson’s choice as the pro-boycott lobby says, because we do have a choice. At this point, we must use our ballot to vote against the most wicked, and vote into office the least wicked of the candidates.

The alternative is clear. In the US there was voter apathy sweeping in Donald Trump. Voter turnout peaked at 61.1% when Obama came in first in 2008 and dropping a little to 58.0% for Obama’s second term in 2012. There was utter apathy in Trump’s year of 2016, the turnout dropping to 56.0% with voter apathy increasing as a result of Bernie Sanders’ being left out of the race. (Data from Professor Michael Mcdonald’s United States Elections Project).

And the result, as put to us by public speaker George Takei (Sulu in Star Trek), an Orangutan, an Ignorant Moron, got into the White House.

Vote we must, for Simon Ranaweera’s legacy of living peaceably with our neighbours. We must learn to think like little Miss Akashini Fernando.

Based on a lecture at the Simon Ranaweera Sivarajah Institute of Tamil delivered at the Kesbewa Town

Council in Piliyandala to celebrate Sri Lanka’s trilingual policy brought about by the Thirteenth Amendment.

I thought we – all good and decent Sri Lankans – had an easy choice of voting against the killers and rogues asking for our vote. Now we have candidates vowing to protect killers. It is not Hobson’s choice as the pro-boycott lobby says, because we do have a choice