Heshan, I am honored to be called a peasant and also Sherlock Holmes – one of the greatest fictional detectives!

“I have a feeling that when the intellectual establishment à la Dayan J. have breathed their last, a recalcitrant class of subservient peasantry will be more resigned to their fate.”

Your concerns are touching. However, we have not forgotten that we have indeed been through darker times, when UNP governments burnt bodies in tyres and populated the diyawanna oya with those roasted bodies. Driving past freshly went off bomb scenes where I still remember seeing the bloody ripped out arm. Those images etched in my head at a very impressionable age, has helped me a great deal in appreciating what we have today! And constantly remind me of the fight at hand just not to go back to those days! King or not what we have right now is much much better and our fate can only get better!

Far as I can see it’s a fate without, wdakagara (torture houses), fate without burning tyre smells, a fate without logs in rivers (what my driver told me, instead of saying they were dead bodies floating because I was still young), fate without suicide bombs. Let me tell you I am so optimistic for the future.

In any case I’d worry more about all the election spam that mobile phone users are getting. Who is sending it, why are they allowed to spam people, and who is paying/profiting from this nuisance. It’s not REALLY a public service to get partisan spam, whether you agree with the spammers or not.

What we should be concerned with now is whether the dead, the non-existent, and future incarnations of the present manage to somehow vote…

On another note, I am happy to see Observer and the other peasants playing Sherlock Holmes in defense of the King. I have a feeling that when the intellectual establishment à la Dayan J. have breathed their last, a recalcitrant class of subservient peasantry will be more resigned to their fate.

As that cunning Italian chap Machiavelli once said, “it is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.”

Well, gv seems to imply that it was done to all the ballot papers in the area. Meaning the sample was highly contaminated. Now, I have randomly checked this sample with few people and no one had this stapled piece of paper. I live in Battaramulla not far from Pannipitya so I know people in this area.

“I have done field work in Batti, I did not see any child recruits, therefore LTTE did not recruit children”, was the argument a professor of anthropology wrote to me!. I am old enough not to fall for such rubbish.

Of course why listen to professors when LTTE itself has acknowledged and released videos of child soldiers? I am glad you’re old enough to accept evidence provided by the guilty party, incriminating themselves. haha

In posting this item, GV appears to seek high standards for our election process, so they are reporting the flaws they find. This, I appreciate very much — we need to strive to make ourselves better. Investigating allegations to credible standards is part of making ourselves better.

How can the allegation be credible when the said person is the only one who seem to have received this ballot paper with the little stapled paper. Why hide the face when his identity is revealed? Is he planning on changing his name, NIC no and residence after appearing in this video? I guess it adds to the dramatic effect.

High standards?? One way to look at this is violating election rules in favour of a certain candidate. You can put 2 and 2 together right? 😉 I’ll save myself typing a bit.

Your logic, on the other hand, is more in line with wanting to go back to the days of TULF getting a massive mandate for separation — voters were so enthusiastic that even dead people returned temporarily and voted to grant that mandate, remember? Now try your logic on me: “I know a dead uncle who didn’t come back to vote, therefore… etc”

Coherence would be appreciated.. I don’t see how my logic is in line with that rant. Sorry!

Me — my day job is analysing data with experimental errors — what I care most about now is if the difference between the winner’s count and the loser’s count is bigger than the estimated proportion of our countrymen who might be influenced by this joke with staples and similar mischieves.

Well would you have been influenced if this attachment was on your ballot paper? Would you have automatically put a cross on the leaf? I hear you say ABSOLUTELY NOT! Who do you take me for? A monkey??

Ahh sir… Are you trying to say everyone else is slightly inferior to your intelligence? Hypothetically assuming a sample received ballot papers with the alleged attachment, we can assume a majority of them had common intelligence. In all fairness we can safely assume most of them are not monkeys! If monkey are getting ballot papers then now that’s a story worth giving coverage! Clearly I see some dodgy practices if that is the case. 😉

Btw, my day job is analysing BS! Not really, it’s more of a hobby.

I will bet you a piLa of palmyrah toddy the winning margin will be bigger than the noise. In this regard, hats off to Perera Senior who seems to have said “No big deal, putha”. That is the spirit of my countrymen I cheer!!

Indeed, finally I agree with you. MR win is all but certain purely due to the fact that majority of the voters are not monkeys or gold fish (hopefully). I say monkeys because of those who believe the sensational kata katha that has gone viral lately.

Latest I heard was that president has taken all the ballot boxes to Temple Trees and he is in the process of stuffing it with fake ballot papers. (At least have the creativity to say, some hidden warehouse). Someone told me this to my face with conviction. I tried very hard to keep a straight face as I did not want to hurt a dear friend who is an ardent UNPer.

Oh dear… Gv, do you want to sniff that out? Just get someone to carry a box past Temple Trees on Galle Raod and quickly snap a photo without alerting the guards there.. haha. EXPLOSIVE MATERIAL!! Finally, I say gold fish because some forget who were the real pioneers of corruption and how they are greedily awaiting another go at soora kaama, in the process resorting to the most humiliating, degrading practices an election campaign has ever seen. SHAMEFUL!

I agree with this. It’s poor form just to make accusations with nothing to show as back up. Sad thing is that many Sri Lankan news outlets aren’t beyond doing that, and Groundviews is no exception.

“speaks clear Sinhalese, well prepared, made no mistakes and delivered only necessary info.”

So if someone sounds intelligent, politically savvy, and has the ability to speak without hesitation, his allegation is not valid? Where have we come to if we only give credibility to the seemingly unintelligent? And didn’t it ever occur to you, that to realise this kind of propaganda (assuming it is true,) is incorrect and unacceptable, one needs some kind of political awareness?

Having said that, my polling card comes from Pannipitiya. My polling booth is Dharmapala Kanishta Vidyalaya, in Depanama. I have 11 other family members (uncles and aunts included), who receive their polling cards from Pannipitiya. None of us had this appendage to the polling card. So make of it what you will. Though I am not alleging anyone of a smear campaign, until so proven.