Yesterday, Sirisena has introduced his manifesto but he never walk the talk he promised at the outset. Instead he filled it with verbose explanation of good governance. Indeed, much anticipated abolition of presidential system is relegated to six-years, a la Chandrika. Emphasis of Sirisena’s manifesto is about forming a fruitsalad government of all parties for the first 100 days under Prime Minister Wickramasinghe. But nowhere has it said about transfer of executive powers to that Prime Minister. I can very well understand Tissa Attanayake abandoning UNP.

Even a child could understand that UNP leadership is in a thorough fix not to mention Ven. Sobitha, Professori David and others who strive hard to abolish the Presidential system. [Edited out]

Tamils as people were marked out and denied all these basics of democracy. Denial of those basics caused discrimination, oppression, Tamil armed resistance and Tamil Genocide.

Democracy achieves its basics by decentralisation of power from the central governments, so that the decisions for the implementation of these basics could be done at the local people level, to achieve a governance of, by and for the people.

Greed for power and central control by the Sinhala politicos has caused the present GOSL to move towards dictatorship.

Decentralisation was achieved in many countries by Federalism. Tamil political fathers asked for Federalism to have this structure, practice true democracy and live a happy life with the Sinhalese.

Any political party asking for Tamil vote to protect democracy in SL should speak of implementing Federalism to the people of North and East.

That will be an act of love for the country, its democracy and passionate care for ALL the people of SL.

You are, in fact, wrong. See http://www.cpalanka.org/top-line-survey-results-democracy-in-post-war-sri-lanka-2014/

Perhaps CPA would care to explain how people were polled.

Either way I only see a tragedy for all, especially the minorities whichever party comes to power. The JHU now with the opposition has targeted the minorities. The BBS is with the current regime has also done the same. So whichever party comes to power, expect to lose is my advice. A tragedy is unfolding and will reach its culmination on the 8th of January.

Do we want change for the sake of change?
Will the minorities fare any better with Maithripala+JHU+Rajiva combine than with MR+Gota combine?

The problem, which the business community and anyone else who argues for continuity has ignored is the state of the public finances.

We have an unsustainable level of public expenditure, which is being funded largely by foreign borrowings. Thanks to a general slowness in the economies of Europe and the US we have been able to raise debt at reletively low rates, to finance our expenditure.

We cannot expect such a benign situation in the debt markets to continue indefinitely. Sooner or later interest rates will rise (as soon as the US/EU cut back on quantitative easing) and we will then face a steep rise in debt service costs, which will push us into the same debt trap that Greece faces.

This is not just my view, it is also the view of the IMF and the international rating agencies. Those who want to continue on this path would be well advised peer over the cliff face first.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/08/20/econ-a20.html

http://jestforkicks.blogspot.com/2014/10/why-this-election-is-going-to-suck.html