Post-election reflections of hope 

“Isn’t the practice of charlatanism quite popular among many of our politicians, who resort to scores of dirty tricks of the trade to keep their position, rank and status intact?”

And I wondered was it just another one not different from the others that have gone before? Let’s hope not, and those who are now in control will do their best, and not renege on what has been said and promised by them before the polls. No. I am not day-dreaming!

Even though there has been so much already written and spoken about it, the ‘election’ topic still heads the charts, so to speak. And I am sure that it will continue to do so for some time to come, for obvious reasons; and more so because of calamitous times the country is going through now, along with the rest of the world, all fighting an unseen enemy. Winning an election is one thing. Yet sensible, skilful governance of a country, in these trying circumstances, in particular, is another.

Once again, it was as usual, the too-familiar-to-us spectacle of giving promises and blaming the opposition for everything that went wrong and even right, when the others governed. This time however, the volume (both in loudness and size) of the usually voluminous verbal garbage flying back and forth was rather subdued due to that unseen monster, who is still out there, playing a game of hide and seek.

 The magnitude and nature of some of these promises that are given by our politicians, with such assurance and sincerity of purpose (doubtful) make one wonder: Where were they (I mean both the ‘promises and the promise-givers’) hiding all this time? And then who is the scoundrel that said ‘Sri Lanka’ is poor and very unfairly put it in the ‘Third World’ bracket? That is if one were to put a money value to many of those promises, he/she would no doubt be led to believe that our coffers must be full to the brim, allowing these political philanthropists to spend freely, even with nil or negative economic gains/returns for the country.

And we hope, against hope, that one of the pass-time favourites of many a politician in this regard, will be over soon, once and for all. It is the familiar scene of creating totally irrelevant and wholly unnecessary vacancies in the organisations under their control, and filling them with many incompetent henchmen of theirs, who are mostly square pegs in round holes, whilst often getting too big for their boots too. And to make matters far worse, they don’t sit still. They steal. And they stir. They help themselves to the cake with gay abandon and boundless greed, ‘making hay, while the sun shines. They spend their time in the offices, reposing in their cosy armchairs, planning and scheming what next and how much. They contribute absolutely nothing towards the development and improvement of the quality of services that their departments, ministries or other organisations offer. Instead, they choose to interfere with the matters of management, often leading to chaos, dissent and division amongst the staff, and overall deterioration of the efficiency and professional conduct of the employees of those establishments.

People will be watching, writing and speaking, in spite of the fact that it may be to no avail. Yet it is a worthy attempt to let the governors know the pulse of the society at large. And there will be telltale signs to see, whether the ship is sailing following the promised bearings or going off course.

So let’s wait and see. This may be just one more with another lot elected or maybe not.

The promised wonderland is yet to come. However, the elected always prospered irrespective of where they belonged: be it the governing or the opposing sides. Will the new governors break this now-many-decades-old, ugly dispensation and open up a whole new era of exemplary governance?

LAKSIRI WARNAKULA