The truth behind the election

The shenanigans involving Dayananda Dissanayaka should put him in a class of his own as an enchanting performer. However, behind the vaudeville that involves this balding government officer, are however, some rather important issues that concern the affairs of state, and therefore by extension the affairs of every Sri Lankan.
When the 17th amendment is not being implemented, it is a matter of relevance why the opposition today that fielded the common candidate is concentrating on alleged election malpractice, when the real issue that should be taken up is the election that was held without the 17th amendment being duly implemented.
Curiously, such an election returned - - with a massive majority — the very person who ignored the 17th amendment, and relegated it to the status of a constitutional footnote.
Now, with the elections thus having being held with the constitution in abeyance, the people have to answer the question —- is this massive mandate returning a president from such an election, to be respected in the same way that a landslide would normally be regarded?
On the one hand the people have spoken. But on the other, they have spoken through a broken megaphone, it can be said.
The opposition instead of underscoring this anomaly, is enacting a circus clown act, brandishing ballot papers dragged from drains and other unmentionable places. It’s all great theatre at a time when city temperatures are bound to be climbing higher and becoming intolerable by the day, but where is it all getting us?
It is therefore rather more important that we underline the real issues that animate this post-election period ——- and line them up, so that we have some focus on what the people should be worrying about, and not.
This particular election is not flawed to the extent that Mahinda Rajapaksa’s mandate is genuine, as the ground situation bears it out. Our own pre election opinion taking bore out the fact that there is tremendous grassroots support for this president on account of the war, which is why one Sinhala newspaper editor has said that this was a poll in which the Sinhala people “saved their hero.’’
So point number 1 on the list is - - the election result was accurate.
That being the case, some merit should be given for the fact that even though the 17th amendment was not implemented and therefore the entire election was at the outset flawed, the people even so, elected the president that thus transgressed his constitutional obligation.
Those who glibly get on platforms such as general Fonseka and others in the opposition who are now echoing him though they had previous reservations, should therefore consider that when they offer that their supporters were “disenfranchised’’ they are in fact slighting the supporters of Mahinda Rajapaksa, and saying that these supporters should now be disenfranchised.
Such a call for disenfranchising nearly 60 per cent of the country’s voters cannot be made lightly, and it is not the presidential prospects of the challenger or the governing prospects of the opposition which are at stake, but the preferences of millions of people who according to all available figures, queued up and voted for Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Democracy is predicated upon the fact that it is the will of the majority, and if the will of the majority is to endorse a flawed election process, that too is not to be taken lightly for the simple reason that the endorsement here is to the tune of a 1.8 million majority.
It is still vexed issue of course, as it can be counter argued that the majority was swayed because election laws were violated in the first place with regard to the state media for instance.
Then, however, it is easy to see why the joint opposition must make this argument rather than say preposterously that there was “computer jillmart’’, not bothering to explain how this jillmart can be done, and duplicated in all the electorates in the south —- and not explaining how the Colombo university people who handled the computers suddenly became so flawed, or incompetent, despite the fact that the commissioner of elections gave them a good certificate.
The joint opposition can’t see the woods for the trees in trying to disenfranchise 60 per cent of the country’s voters ostensibly in the name of democracy, and that’s almost close to pathetic. Such a disenfranchisement can be sought on very solid grounds alone, and so far there aren’t such solid grounds.
If on the other hand the joint opposition seeks to annul the election on grounds of non-implementation of the 17th amendment, that should have been clearly stated before the elections. In any event a court of law would take into account all factors such as voter participation etc., in enumerating the misuse of state media, the non- implementation of the 17th amendment etc.,
For example, the remedy for non implementation of the 17th amendment may lie in parliament — even in the form of putative impeachment - - but not in overturning the election result.
At bottom, the opposition cry for annulling the election sounds a bad case of sour grapes and a bad case of sore loser-itis.
But there are signs that the joint opposition is seeking to “do a Venezuela’’, and paint the government as illegitimate on grounds of an ostensibly illegal election. What’s the evidence the joint opposition has? That the elections Commissioner’s face said it?
The joint opposition needs to consider that however flawed the election process is, and however absurd or wrong it is that the 17th amendment was not implemented, that there is a general vox populi in this verdict.
The opposition cannot even go remotely near proving that on election day, the election process was actually flawed.
This means that there was a vox populi for the government — an overwhelming one, despite its laxity with the 17th amendment. About the misuse of state media and state property, the opposition can make a case, but this is the Achilles heel of the government, for the simple reason that by such abuse of power, the government opened itself to overall criticism of the electoral process, when it seems to be apparent from the majority obtained, that the president by far was the preferred candidate of the people.
Mistakes do have their repercussions and the government would have to live with it, but yet, it is a stretch to think that the courts of law or the people would accept that the entire election result is null and void merely because of misuse of state media and state resources.
As with the case of the 17th amendment and the remedy for its non-implementation being in parliament, the remedy for the aforementioned abuse of power would not be in disenfranchising millions of people and overturning an election result.