Comments on: People’s immediate post election responsibility on “corruption” promises http://groundviews.org/2010/01/27/peoples-immediate-post-election-responsibility-on-%e2%80%9ccorruption%e2%80%9d-promises/ Groundviews is an award winning Sri Lankan citizen journalism initiative Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:23:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: undergroundview http://groundviews.org/2010/01/27/peoples-immediate-post-election-responsibility-on-%e2%80%9ccorruption%e2%80%9d-promises/#comment-13759 undergroundview Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:40:22 +0000 http://www.groundviews.org/?p=2600#comment-13759 Openness is a good start - but I'm not as happy as Kusal Perera about a situation like the Indian one, where a company like Tata contributes to all the parties. It just means that all parties become vulnerable to the threat of withholding funds if they go against the donor's wishes too severely. You see the poisonous effect of campaign finance in the USA (where you can't be elected without expensive media advertising, which is generally funded by corporate interests). Come to think of it, there was a lot of (presumably) expensive media coverage in this election in Sri Lanka. Hmmmm... When the donations are secret, it is worse. You're not wrong about that. Openness is a good start – but I’m not as happy as Kusal Perera about a situation like the Indian one, where a company like Tata contributes to all the parties. It just means that all parties become vulnerable to the threat of withholding funds if they go against the donor’s wishes too severely. You see the poisonous effect of campaign finance in the USA (where you can’t be elected without expensive media advertising, which is generally funded by corporate interests). Come to think of it, there was a lot of (presumably) expensive media coverage in this election in Sri Lanka. Hmmmm…

When the donations are secret, it is worse. You’re not wrong about that.

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