The leaders of the People’s Alliance have a firm intention to stay in power for at least one more term, whatever the people might think of it. People’s consent and democratic principles are laughable matters to them. They have a feeling that if the UNP stayed in power for 17 years, they have the right to remain in power for a minimum of one more term.
According to Machiavelli, for the purpose of staying in power, the rulers must have either the people’s support or the ability to intimidate the people into submission. The leaders of the PA have not tried to win the affection of the people though it is too late for such a project. The only option left to them now is to resort to a programme of intimidating the people. That is the direction the government is gradually taking.
The People’s Alliance came to power not because of any activity of its constituent parties but as a by-product of the activity of forces outside party politics who were interested in democracy. At that time the PA had a set of promises which were capable of attracting these non political forces. However the leaders of the PA do not seem to have had any intention to implement their democratic agenda.
Quite apart from abolishing the Executive Presidency, the PA did not even make an attempt to reform it. It did not fulfill any of the promises given to establish media freedom. The PA had promised to take action without delay to give the Commissioner of Elections all the powers necessary to make the electoral process a fair and just one. The government has not even considered the subject, to say nothing of fulfilling that promise.
Even in such minor matters as elections to cooperatives, the PA has followed a policy of permitting violence and rascality. It has honored its members who have perpetrated election malpractices instead of punishing them.
The rehearsals that are going on at every level are a prelude to what the government is going to do at the two major upcoming elections as a necessary condition to win them.
The Wayamba election was the one in which all these illegal and anti-democratic activities were practiced to the utmost. When it became an open fraud, the mass media rose against it. The Commissioner of Elections too took a fearless stand in the crisis that had arisen. Its next consequence was that the Commissioner of Elections, as well as the mass media, faced the government’s displeasure.
Before the Provincial Elections held after the Wayamba election, a citizen went before the Supreme Court and requested it to ensure that there would not be a repetition of Wayamba at future elections. Although the subsequent elections were not clean elections in the full sense of the term, the Supreme Court had seen to it that the Police was able to act in an upright manner and violence and rascality were minimized.
Clearly the government considers that, in order to win the upcoming Presidential Election and the Parliamentary Election it is necessary to keep three factors under its control.
They are the mass media, the Supreme Court and the Commissioner of Elections. It was thus that the government resorted to buying over media persons and to relentlessly attack those who could not be bought over.
It is not difficult to see what is going to happen in the future. The intention of the government is to win the two upcoming elections by whatever means necessary.
The government will inevitably repress the person and the institution that might be an obstacle to that victory. The final result of such action would be to deprive the people of their liberty, the collapse of the rule of law, the break down of the system of democratic political institutions, the country’s descent again to a situation where fear of death reigns and the entrenchment of mass corruption and terror.
The revolutionary organizations like the JVP too are groping in the dark. Civil society organizations like human rights organizations and trade union organizations are in deep slumber.
It was the judiciary which was the fundamental institution which protected all kinds of fundamental rights. Although there were various divisions in the country based on political parties and ethnic groups and there were also various conflicts arising from those divisions, all the people living in the midst of all other conflicts had faith in the judiciary. Even the political movements functioning inside the framework of democracy went before the judiciary to secure their rights.
The judiciary did not appear to the people as a puppet that could be entirely manipulated by the ruling party.
If the government succeeds in attaining its objective and all the political parties and mass organizations maintained their silence in this regard, it will certainly have to pay a great price for their failure to do their duty.