Voters taken for a ride again

Tuesday 23rd April, 2024

Old habits are said to die hard. Although the leaders of the incumbent dispensation promised to heed the resentful youth’s strident call for a ‘system change’, in 2022, and mend their ways, they have, true to form, reneged on their pledge and shown signs of a relapse into the previous mode of behaviour, if the manner in which they are conducting their election campaigns is anything to go by.

Sri Lankan politicians, like their Indian counterparts, have earned notoriety for handouts-for-votes schemes. The SLPP-UNP government has embarked on a campaign to curry favour with poor voters by distributing free rice, state-owned lands/houses, etc. The people are being bribed with their own money, again! The distribution of free rice is likely to continue until the upcoming presidential election.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe is traversing the country as if there were no tomorrow, giving away rice, distributing title deeds for state land, and making various promises, obviously with an eye to the next presidential election. The UNP politicians who suffered ignominious electoral defeats in 2020 are trying to come in from the cold by taking part in the free rice distribution ceremonies, which must be costing the public more than the rice stocks being given away. Shouldn’t they use their personal funds, most of which were raised while they were in power, to grant relief to the public and gain political mileage?

The SJB is also giving away things. It says it is using its own funds for its vote-catching welfare programmes; however, it ought to reveal where funds for such projects come from. All political parties ought to maintain utmost transparency about their funds and transactions if they are not to be accused of benefiting from the largesse of unsavoury characters, who use their black money to bankroll political campaigns. None of them care to do so. Instead, they accuse each other of corrupt practices.

The JVP does not believe in giving; it only receives donations including designer clothes for its leaders, whose sartorial elegance seems to compare favourably with that of the young members of the Medamulana family. It has not even given back to the people what it grabbed from them during its reign of terror in the late 1980s. It should at least return their national identity cards!

The SLFP ought to curtail its expenditure and utilise the savings to enable its leader, Maithripala Sirisena, to pay compensation to the Easter Sunday victims in keeping with the Supreme Court order for his pathetic failure to prevent the terror attacks in 2019.

The practice of politicians doing political work at the expense of the public must end forthwith. There is absolutely no need for the President or the ministers or the members of the UNP to attend the rice distribution ceremonies. In fact, there must be no ceremonies at all. The distribution of free rice can be done through the Divisional Secretaries, Grama Niladhari and other state employees. That is what public officials are there for.

Equally, the public must not be made to pay for the Opposition Leader’s transport and security when he conducts political campaigns. The same goes for the ministers running around like headless chickens. A state minister’s official vehicle caught fire recently while he was zipping about in his electoral district to attend Avurudu sports events. He was not doing any official work, and therefore the cost of the fire-damaged vehicle must be recovered from him.

Whenever useless state functions are held in faraway places, to boost the ruling party politicians’ egos, the President, the Prime Minister, Ministers and military bigwigs fly there in separate helicopters, and the public has to foot the bill. They must be made to pay for such chopper rides from their personal funds.

Today is Bak Full Moon Poya Day. Politicians who live off the public, flaunt what they make out to be their piety, and sermonise, on days of religious significance. Let them be urged to make a resolution today to cease to be a burden on the hapless public, who are practising austerity and struggling to keep the wolf from the door.