As we pass the 63rd milepost of self-rule, we're facing challenges seldom seen in our short history. Most of the world is out to get us, we've got a government that favours centralised rule and a president who abolished term limits that applied to him, we've got the armed forces engaged in business (vegetables, luxury cruise ships and even whale watching!) and we've got an opposition without hope. Even when things looked bleak for the UNP in 1975, with Sirimavo using her majority to delay elections by 2 years, there was a valiant and cunning leader in JR who capitalised on the unpopularity of the government (and its inability to feed its people... ring any bells?) and won a landslide when elections were eventually held in '77. Today the UNP is a party of blind leading the blind, and the other forces in the opposition are either in jail (SF) or getting routed from their traditional strongholds in the universities (JVP). And before you accuse me of being an anti-government booyaka who wants nothing more than to topple the bros from Hamba, let me remind you that people who want this government to succeed (myself included, I've seen way too many governments fail before) would want a strong opposition that acts as a watchdog against government wrongdoing, corruption and wastage. If we're to call this a democracy, the people at bare minimum deserve that from their elected opposition. For example, all the pundits seem to agree that had Gamini or Lalith not been assassinated, and had served as opposition leader from '93 - '99, CBK's government would never have grown so corrupt and
Okay then, back to watching the parade...
