Election-Related Violence – Part II

By Emil van der Poorten –November 27, 2016

Emil van der Poorten

When the 1970 election came along, I was sufficiently disenchanted with our sitting Member of Parliament and his conduct, not to want to participate. However, I was reminded by a friend of what would be the consequences of a Dudley Senanayake defeat in 1970 and decided to work for OttupaalBanda again, if not with the same vigour as five years before.

Part way through the election, I had some of my village contacts complaining that thuggery had extended to boulders and logs being rolled on main roads, preventing sick people, irrespective of party affiliation, traversing the roads of our rural part of the world after dark in search of hospital treatment.

I decided to do the obvious – seek police intervention of some description – and went into Kandy to see a friend who was considered one of the major “movers and shakers” in the area and a respected medical practitioner to boot, Dr. C. D. L (Derrick) Fernando. He thought the best way to deal with the issue was to see the Superintendent of Police whose position was much farther up the Police hierarchical ladder than is now the case. I distinctly remember the meeting with Merrick Gunaratne who inquired whether it was my contention that the totally unacceptable blocking of public roads was the doing of SLFP supporters only. I answered in the negative and told him that I was seeking police intervention to prevent a totally unacceptable state of affairs continuing and that the miscreants needed to be caught, appropriately prosecuted and punished, irrespective of party affiliation, something that, in recent times would be treated as the ultimate in heresy! My recollection was that the situation improved significantly after my complaint because of beefed-up police patrols etc.

What I meant to be the last gesture of loyalty to the late W.M.G.T. Banda, brutally disemboweled by the JVP during their second insurrection, turned out to be an unknowing step in the direction of my virtual banishment from Sri Lanka.

In those days, after the polls closed on election day, the ballot boxes were collected from the polling stations and brought into the counting place – the Kandy Kachcheri in our case – escorted by the election officials and representatives of the candidates such as I.

On our way into Kandy there appeared to be efforts to waylay the UNP part of the procession on the main Kandy-Kurunegala road. No stones hit us or our vehicles but there were efforts to obstruct or at least slow us down so that the hooting and jeering we were subject to would be more effective!

We reached Kandy “in one piece” and went into the tedious, night-long process of watching the counting of the ballots.

Quite early in the night, it was apparent that we were headed for defeat and when we walked out of the Kachcheri at daybreak Tikiri Banda had lost the Galagedera seat and the UNP had lost government.

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