The President was elected for a second term which represents the level of trust given by the voters to his leadership capacity. There are visions of renewal that have been entrusted to him and through him to the politicians who will discuss and propose solutions regarding improving the social and economic standards of this country. It seems to be we are immersed in a form of democracy known as “Delegative Democracy”.

Guillermo O’Donnell , the Academic Director of the Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies is a well known authority on the topic of “Delegative Democracy”.

O’ Donnell explains the term:

“Delegative democracies are grounded on one basic premise: he/she (Indira Gandhi, Corazón Aquino, and Isabel Perón) who wins a presidential election is enabled to govern the country as he/she sees fit, and to the extent that existing power relations allow, for the term to which he/she has been elected. The President is the embodiment of the nation and the main custodian of the national interest, which it is incumbent upon him to define. What he does in government does not need to bear any resemblance to what he said or promised during the electoral campaign—he has been authorized to govern as he sees fit.”

. “Delegative democracy is not alien to the democratic tradition. Actually, it is more democratic, but less liberal, than representative democracy. DD is strongly majoritarian…”

It is then important to remember than in the context of clean elections, it is a majority that empowers somebody to become “their Leader”.

There are many implications as a consequence of this “delegation” of power.

Christopher Larkins comments on these issues in his article “The Judiciary and Delegative Dermocracy in Argentina”,(JSTOR Comparative Politics, Vol. 30, No. 4 ,Jul., 1998, pp. 423-442) taking into account the election of former president Carlos Menem whose style was described as an extreme form of “Presidentialism”.

Coming back to O’ Donnell he continues to describe DDs as very emotional as they are based in the role played by the “Winner of the elections” and the voters are perceived as mere spectators after casting their votes.

Do we need to search for more characteristics???

You are repenting slowly for the wrongs done in haste. Now give up unjustifiable and unrealistic goal of Eelam. No one can change realities by repeated chanting of ambitions. One should only think of reasonable ambitions. Your ambitions will never be fulfilled. I think even in your next birth you will not stop the chanting of the same idea over and over again.

In away I like you very much. You never give up your effort. Solo fighter.

Hail the Bravo!

In a survey conducted by “Daily Mirror” newspaper in Sri Lanka(SL) about a few weeks before the presidential election, about 84 percent of the populace expressed openly their desire that the “ethnic problem” should be addressed. Yet, the presidential candidates of UNF and UPFA were adamantly silent.

The unexplained truth of the “ethnic problem” is based on Vaddukoddai resolution of 1976, there was an independence war -not a separatist war – with a view to establish Tamil Eelam(TE). And the political resistance against the colonists in Colombo has now grown to unprecedented high levels, both internally and internationally, amongst the Tamil “citizenry”.

There are even absolute parallels between “Eelam war” and the war for independence in America.

The “Battle of Bunker Hill” was in 1843 in America and the massacre of 5 civilians in Boston by the colonial forces is still called “Boston Massacre”.

In “Eelam war” the “Battle of Mullaitivu” was in 2009 and the massacre of 22000 to 40000 Tamil civilians by the colonial forces is called “Mullaitivu Massacre”.

The voters desired an expression of an appropriate democratic solution to this very serious “ethnic problem” but was denied.

The baiscs of democracy were thus openly violated and it was not an election but a contest between two persons whose ego was out of control. Appropriately, the British Commonwealth termed the election as “not democratic”.

Last week, there was another sting on the tail for democracy in SL. The “Buddhist” prelates wrote to president Rajapakse about the arrest of Sarath Fonseka and said that they “have a right to interfere in the coutry’s affairs”.

In true democracy, the prelates have the same rights like any other voter.

Surely, the prelates have a piritual obligation to speak out for justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with all the people. They also have a responsibility to teach the people to overcome fear by love and eliminate material greed.

Love casts out fear and hatred. Spiritually, love and fear cannot co-exist. Love lavishes out and is never greedy.

But during the past 60 years, the monks created unwanted fear, panic and jitterness amongst the Sinhalese against the legitimate rights of self governance and self determination of Tamils. Monks also promoted Sinhala greed for land and political power in Tamil homeland.

Both acts, completely unspiritual, caused hatred, violence and brutal war in the island; disturbing peace and stability. And injustice was promoted, a reason for the arrest of Fonseka.

A man reaps waht he sows is a spiritual law.

I love monks. We all must love them. But it is not possible to make sense out of democratic and spiritual nonsense.

What SL needs is sensible democracy and spirituality.

The mega problems inherited after 3 decades of internal warring are grave indeed. How each political party hopes to tackle them, let alone overcome them, has yet to be unravelled in the short time before the next polling date. The writer has enumerated some of the sectors where obvious deficiciencies have become noticeable. What is also relevant is the economic growth sector which in the ultimate analysis has to underpin the social and political secctors. Somehow planned development over fixed time horizons has been replaced by shorter periods with the advent of free market economics since the 1980s. Whether this is the most desirable for developing countries remains to be seen given the free fall of the state of the economies in the West.

As for rampant corruption the remedies were spelt out by Presidential contender Sarath Fonseka but it failed to fly with the voters! However there was a time when the special institution set up fro the purpose- the Bribery Commission- was very active and had the situation very much under control. What is one to say when even the Auditor General’s scrutiny into public accounts has fallen by the wayside? Its is a pretty desperate situation the cost of which will have to be borne ultimately by the people and the taxpayers, not the politicians.

In the case of Sri Lanka, there is a 69 percent vocal majority and a 31 percent powerless minority. And a situation where the President is elected only from the 69 percent vocal majority, and never from the 31 percent powerless minority!

Now the 64 million dollar question is, WHY VOTE when the henchmen and henchwomen of the Royal Family eventually SELECTS who WINS and who LOSES…and by how much they win by at the counting centres.

The only way forward is for this country to be once again administered by Britain or some other 1st world country. Until then, Sri Lanka will meander along as a ‘Can’t be developed country,’ ruled by an oriental despot and his Royal Family of 300+.

“That again leaves the question, what is the fate of the 500,000 children who sat the O/L exam, minus the 20,000 admitted to universities”

Presumably they leave school and go on to learn some trade that will get them into employment: agriculture, small business, nursing, three-wheeler driving, army and, well, may be even politics. There is no point in educating everyone to university levels. The party in power in the UK, for example, has a target of getting 50% of 18 year-olds to go to university. They are yet to achieve that – now realising they can’t even afford it, but the flaws in that policy are beginning to show in a different way. Industry is complaining that these graduates are unemployable. A big fraction of them are getting Mickey Mouse degrees with which they are actually at a severe disadvantage when they graduate and face the job market. It would have been much better had they left formal education at 16 and joined apprenticeship schemes to become butchers, bakers and candle-stick makers!

Appeal to the Government : You may be able, for now survive like this. But the day of reckoning may not be all that far off. “You can’t fool all the people all the time.”

Please, we are peace loving people; we don’t want a revolution a la Francecaise 1789.