It has become clear that though the people aspire to change the government, the leaders of this government aspire to thwart this by brute force wherever possible.
Even if the PA wins at the this election, through the power devolved on the President to nominate the Prime Minister and the Cabinet there appears to be a plan to name Sirima Bandaranaike instead of Chandrika Kumaratunga, the PA choice, as Prime Minister, and thereby to create a division in the People’s Alliance by means of which the UNP can become a part of a national government.
In these foolish arithmetical calculations made by the Government they have not taken into account the force and extent that people’s power which will be unleashed at the election.
The Government thinks that it will suffer only a small defeat not an annihilation as a result of the self-protective proportional representation electoral system that it established. In addition, they are counting on the Northern MPs whom they hope to send to Parliament by pure and simple thuggery and fraud. By adding these to the Southern list they hope by some ugly deal to promote a faction of those who win into forming a national government which they can manipulate subtly.
Yet, a people who are determined to topple by their vote a government that has oppressed them continuously for 17 long years, a people that have suffered for so long, are not going to behave according to this arithmetic. In the past, governments were changed every five years. Yet, the new system, to which this government has added its own brand of chicanery, is seeing a change of regime not after five or six years, but after 17. Another 8 years and it would have been a quarter century.
Within such a context, when the public is intent on using an election as a weapon no one can prevent them from marshalling all their resources, from focussing all their power to this end. In these circumstances, instead of an ordinary victory one encounters a massive triumph that cannot be easily reduced to statistics. It must also not be forgotten that the current system is not a pure proportional model. It is a system by which the victor obtains a greater number of MPs than a purely representational system would allow. This system which favours the victorious group by giving it a number of MPs in excess of the proportion it has polled, in effect enables the victor to elect an MP on the basis of less votes than the loser. According to the relevant formula for the number of votes in Paragraph 99, if the total quantum of votes polled in a district is 4,20,000, and if the number of seats allocated is 8, then when the minimum number of votes required to elect an MP is 50,000 the victor needs only 37,500.
It is ironic that the non-proportional proportional representation system established by the UNP to feed its greed for power will inevitably work towards its destruction. According to this dispensation, through its ability to win in more districts than the UNP, the PA will be able to create MPs using less votes than their rivals in a manner that would not have been possible within a purely proportional formula. Once this factor is added to the factor of the will of the people, no one will be able to prevent the PA obtaining a clear majority which would leave no room for cloak and dagger conspiracies.
The people desire a clear and unequivocal change of government. The public does not want a puppet regime dancing to the tune of Anura Bandaranaike who in turn is doing the UNP’s bidding. Nor is it interested in a national government which includes the UNP in its fold.
If it were the case that the D. B. Wijetunga now in power had been elected at a fresh Presidential Election held before the Parliamentary Election, and if the General Election held subsequently resulted in a party other than the President’s being elected to power, then the formula hatched by the UNP may have had some validity. Yet, today, the present incumbent is not such a President. He is a person who inherited the Presidency on the merit of the Premadasa assassination, as it were, and not someone who was elected by the people’s direct vote. In addition, one must not forget that he is now at the tail end of his legal tenure in office where he is a weak President on the verge of being cast away into oblivion. It is difficult to conceive that such a weak individual will be afforded the opportunity to play games with the tremendous public power that is due to be unleashed at the election. If through rank foolishness one were to attempt to play games at this time, there can be no doubt that it will boomerang on the player.
It must be emphasised that the public sentiment expressed by votes at a parliamentary election which is held during the last hours of the President’s tenure is relevant not merely to Parliament. It is also crucial to the President. The President is not only the head of the government, he is also the leader of that party’s electoral battle. Therefore, the defeat inflicted on the UNP at this election is not restricted to the defeat of the UNP parliamentary group. It is also a defeat inflicted on the President.
Considering chronological sequence, the Presidential election should have been held first. However, the President was too scared to go in for a Presidential election first. Therefore, he followed the typical practice of sending the pot before the thief. In a situation where the leader should have gone before his group, D. B. Wijetunga sacrificed his party for self-interest. Such an effete leader should not trifle with the democratic force released by this poll.
If President Wijetunga is honest and far-sighted he should do the right thing which is to officially announce the Presidential Election before the Parliamentary Election results are released, so as to voluntarily place himself in a relatively less powerful position, thereby establishing a valuable principle. If, instead, he uses his few remaining days of power to toy with the public mandate, then the direst consequences cannot be averted.
This situation is relevant to Mrs. Bandaranaike to a certain extent. If she were to allow herself to be fooled by UNP trickery and to work against the people’s wishes at this crucial juncture, then the general rage will be directed towards her as well as towards the President.
The people do not desire or expect a puppet government manipulated by Anura Bandaranaike, Sunethra Nanayakkara or Nihal Jayawickrema. In the face of the PA position that they have selected Chandrika Kumaratunga to lead them as Prime Minister if they win the election, the Government states that it will select Mrs. Bandaranaike. If Mrs. Bandaranaike continues to remain silent on this issue, some doubt is bound to creep into the minds of the people that she is acting, at this crucial moment, in the interests of the UNP for personal gain.
The popular current that the PA is riding at present will, in the next few days, undoubtedly increase to tidal wave proportions. This is less the outcome of the party’s efforts than the result of the people’s desire to rid themselves of this godforsaken government. Any conspiracy in its path will no more deter its progress than a sand castle on the beach.