Barack Obama, also came to power talking about a change. Look what happend in one year. He lost New Jersey, Virginia and yesterday in Massachusettets. People can not be fooled all the time.

however, they have realised, too late i hope, they have caught a tiger by the tail. the possibility of being mauled very badly by the sf campaign is a very present and clear threat to the mr regime. the manner in which the regime is conducting the campaign is a very clear indication of how they will conduct good governance or rule of law. the country will be run in a despotic manner with a close coterie of people who will do anything and everything for loads of filthy lucre.

unfortunately we in sri lanka are a people who doesn’t have a vision to the future. if people do vote into power mr again what it means is we are approving corruption, nepotism, despotism and giving mr a free hand again to do anyhting what he likes with this beautiful country. god bless sri lanka and sf.

Surprisingly neither of the two parties seem to have said much about increasing productive employment opportunities for educated youth at a time when this factor is key to many others. Both the JVP uprising and LTTE rebellion had their roots in unemployment factors of eduacted youth. The beneficiaries by a turn of fate had been the politicians as to who put them down successfully! This alone shows that any government worthy of its name which wants to avoid the sanguine and horrible past should give this subject top priority, more than any other. I mean economically productive jobs of creating more goods and services rather than in hand outs. To this end the anti-corruption drive makes a lot of sense. So too is information on the role of the private sector in the context of future national and provincial development.

Also untouched is the very touchy all pervasive national questions about ethnics and ethnic reconciliation. Unless this is sorted out to mutual satisfaction among all the communities, as done in 1948, there is room for history to repeat itself in time. The subject is well known all round and what is neeeded is an all round solution. Not a unilateral one which brings yet more grief. Education may well be the facilitator to bring this about rather than political slogans.

It is pleasing to note that SF’s manifesto gives pride of place to governance which is at the core of responsible democratic governments. As there is a division of responsibilities between the center it makes sense to allocate to the provinces a rational list of duties and responsibilities so that they can also contribute meaningfully to improving the lot of people and development of their areas in close liaison rather than through the center alone because of the traditional allergy in the past to shedding central funcions. It is no wonder there were 112 Ministers in the present government in addition to Provincial Chief /other Ministers which seems a mockery of governance responsibilties by sheer duplication of functions. If the idea of Provincial Councils was to make government more readily accessible to people in the provinces then it ought to be facilitated meaningfully . There can be no halfway house based on vested interests of a few. This is also reflected in the econmic data of people in the western province as compared to people in the provinces. A more equitable distribution of resources in favour of the provinces would be quite meaningful in achieving better growth and distribution of incomes.