(Editorial, The Island) The Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe regime is all out to derail the local government (LG) elections scheduled for 09 March. The Election Commission (EC) is determined to ensure that the country goes to the polls as scheduled, and the Opposition is bragging that the government’s plan to delay the mini polls has gone pear-shaped, and the SLPP-UNP combine will have to bow to the inevitable, but nothing is so certain as the unexpected in politics, which is full of surprises. A beleaguered, shameless regime that fears elections will not baulk at anything to retain its hold on power.
The Cabinet is in overdrive to throttle the EC financially and scuttle the LG polls. It has adopted the zero-based budget technique, according to which no balances are carried forward and no pre-committed expenses permitted. Government Spokesman and Minister Bandula Gunawardena revealed, at a media briefing, yesterday, that the Cabinet had decided to appoint 10 committees comprising public officials to explore ways and means of rationalising the utilisation of budgetary allocations for 10 Ministries, and unsurprisingly the Ministry of Public Administration, Home Affairs, Provincial Councils and Local Government is among them!
Surprisingly, the government, which is desperate for funds, has not cared to recover the losses the state coffers suffered to the tune of Rs. 16 billion due to the sugar tax scam.
The Cabinet had also decided to release funds only for essential recurrent expenditure, given the country’s economic difficulties, Minister Gunawardena has told the media. The government obviously does not consider elections essential, and its game plan is clear.
Curiously, the government, which bewails the country’s pecuniary woes, has no qualms about allocating public funds with a generous hand for extravagant events such as grand ceremonies to boost the egos of its leaders. It also has enough funds to set up new ministries and pay for its leaders’ junkets. Perhaps, the fuel bill for the recent Independence Day and rehearsals for the event must have been higher than that for a general election!
President J. R. Jayewardene created conditions for a bloodbath in the late 1980s by doing away with the 1982 general election and denying the people an opportunity to vent their anger democratically. He held a referendum instead and had it rigged, thereby stoking people’s resentment, which became rocket fuel for the JVP’s spree of violence. Four decades on, his nephew, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, stands accused of trying to do something similar. Those who do not learn from history are said to be doomed to repeat it.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa cannot be unaware of the disastrous consequences of poll postponements. He was a member of the SLFP-led United Front government, which postponed a general election in 1975 by two years, and suffered an ignominious defeat, as a result. He lost his seat at the 1977 general election, where the UNP obtained a five-sixths majority, which it abused in every conceivable manner. Then, he fought against the scrapping of the 1982 parliamentary polls. He protested when the Yahapalana government postponed the Provincial Council elections in 2017, and rightly declared that it was an assault on democracy. But he was instrumental in postponing the LG polls last year, and is unashamedly supporting the government move to delay them further. Shame on him!
Germany is trying to wipe Hitler from its memory, but the current Sri Lankan leaders take pride in likening themselves to the Fuhrer, and, in fact, they are apparently busy putting in place something similar to the Third Reich, here. They are deploying their Brownshirts to suppress democratic dissent and deprive the public of their franchise and their right to protest; they also pamper vainglorious Generals, who are given gallantry medals in peacetime! The police are already acting like the Gestapo; they are hunting down anti-government protesters.
If the current regime is allowed to use the country’s economic woes as an excuse for postponing the LG polls, it will be emboldened to delay the parliamentary and presidential elections as well on the same grounds. The sooner the country is liberated from the clutches of the SLPP-UNP combine, the better. You do not keep a rape victim in the custody of the rapist, do you?
It is the fervent hope of everyone who cherishes democracy and wishes for a secure future for the country’s youth and children that the incumbent regime’s sinister plan to undermine people’s franchise and prolong its hold on power arbitrarily will come a cropper.