The coming general elections might be the most apathetic we've had in quite a while. The general public doesn't seem to give 1/100th the shit the candidates are giving when it comes to voting. People are still facing hardships: the cost of living is high, wages are low, and the Maharagama cancer hospital has run out of drugs and has to reuse catheters because the government isn't properly supplying them. Yet candidates are building massive campaign halls (reminiscent of what MR had built at Temple Trees during the Presidential Elections) all around, and spending massive amounts of money on campaigning. In the Colombo district Pachaayudaya, R. Duminda, Boggles and Wayima (a.k.a. Ayomaya Shakthiya) seem to be ahead on the spending. Where the money comes from is anybody's guess, but why the public isn't more concerned about this extravagant spending is even more worrying.
The fight for preferential votes do provide us with the laughs though. Pachaya had a huge cutout in front of the Pannipitiya flyover, and some Duminda supporters had decided to plaster posters of their candidate over Pachaya's mouth! And I wouldn't trust anyone who tells me that they didn't laugh when they saw Niroshan Padukka's poster, where he's posing like a flower girl! ;) At least the level of violence in Colombo seems to be close to nil, whereas in areas like Rathnapura (where Premalal Jayasekara, a.k.a. Choca malli, is running a campaign of terror) even candidates from the ruling party have found it difficult to campaign, so you can imagine what the situation is for the opposition.
The outcome of the election is not apparent at the moment, but I'm willing to bet that the UPFA will win. My best case scenario is that the chauvinistic elements in the government (the NFF and the JHU) as well as those in the opposition (the JVP) are eliminated in the election, and the centrists change the constitution to something with a more decentralised power structure and a weaker President and stronger parliament. The government doesn't need a 2/3rds majority to achieve this, since everyone will support a good constitution. Teamwork and bi-partisanship will produce better results and achieve a solution that's acceptable to all segments of society, instead of just the UPFA voter base...
meh
more details of the type of thing that chavie admire ( looking at naked pis of males etc) and get fooled by here
ReplyDeletehttp://llibertarian.blogspot.com/2010/03/attack-blogs-naked-pics-fake-comments.html
clickable link
ReplyDeleteLol... posing like a flower girl.... that's the best discription I have heard so far!!
ReplyDeleteAnd if these nincompoops get elected .. I will not blame the candidates.
ReplyDeleteYou know if can zoom out and look at this whole situation any idiot will realize that it's all a bloody joke :S
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for all of them, Including Mr. Rajaya, Pachaya and Choca!
cheers!
Snut - Thanks for the +3 comments. Much appreciated! :D
ReplyDeleteAngel - Hahaha, thanks! It was funneh man! But kudos to him for trying something different from the same old election pose! ;)
Kirigalpoththa - We've got only ourselves to blame. I mean, with all the faults that the 'preferential vote' system has, it also gives the voter a helluva lot of choice when it comes to picking their MP (20-odd candidates to choose from in Colombo). So, it's up to the voter. Let's hope he picks well! :)
Meshak - Yep, sadly getting the big picture is a skill that many seem to lack... I feel sorry for them too, but I feel sorrier for the patients who are dying without medicine, and the kids who go hungry at night because their parents can't afford to buy food!
Perhaps it is possible to fool most of the people all the time, or perhaps we are just fools....
ReplyDeleteApathy? I wudnt know what it's like there but in my place, it's more of a 'keep your head down and don't piss of the person in power' concept. I'm guessing the situation might be similar there..
ReplyDeleteIt's an Asian thing
Nice response to El Creepo - looks like you are an addition to his hate list. A compliment to be sure!!
ReplyDeleteSigma - Haha, good one! :D
ReplyDeleteLosh - Well, yeah we do have that here as well, but what I meant by apathy here is that the participation of the public in the process this time around is much less when compared to the presidential election that we had 2 months ago. Maybe they're tired of having election after election after election. No idea! :)
I dunno, looking around Asia, there seems to be countries where people are very enthusiastic about the whole political process, like Nepal and Thailand. Then there are the countries that are sleeping! lol ;)
Java - Thanks! Hehe, I'm really honoured that I managed to piss his irrational self off, I must be saying something right, yeah? ;)
you are welcome.
ReplyDelete