Calm before the storm

Editorial-January 6, 2015

Hurly-burly is far from done and the battle is not yet lost and won. An end to campaigning has been announced officially, but propaganda activities continue unabated through the social media. They won’t stop until the polling is over on Thursday.

The bush telegraph plays a crucial role in Sri Lankan politics and both the government and the Opposition are busy floating all kinds of stories in a bid to ruin each other’s chances of winning. People get mistruths, half-truths and blatant lies through the grapevine. There’s sucker born every minute and tall tales are lapped up by even the so-called intelligentsia.

The informal channels of communication have put paid to Polls Chief Mahinda Deshapriya’s efforts to enable voters, through a period of silence prior to the day of polling, to contemplate and consider the pros and cons of various policies announced and promises made by political parties and candidates during the election campaign. He has his work cut out as all candidates are adept at circumventing the election laws. We hope that he has got a cardiac stress test done and been declared medically fit to referee the match which is sure to be full of head-butting, tackling and even violence. (The previous Polls Chief had his ticker repaired more than once because of elections!)

Tomorrow’s contest has remained a two-horse race right from the beginning with several donkeys also running and braying; some of them have got the Polls’ Chief’s goat by campaigning for others in the fray. The media have come under fire from some quarters for their preoccupation with the two main candidates to the neglect of others. They stand accused of being partial towards President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithripala Sirisena.

Ideally, all contestants in an election should be treated equally, but in reality that does not happen even in a bicycle race where seasoned riders who are ahead of others get all the attention (as well as water treatment generously given by overenthusiastic spectators) and nobody gives two hoots about those who pedal, huffing and puffing, several miles behind them. If each and every candidate in an electoral contest is to be given equal coverage, the electronic media will lose viewers/readers and the print media readers! For, most of them are jokers like the one who promised to give every family a cow if he was elected President.

Marketing is the be-all and end-all of elections and those who have the wherewithal succeed in creating media events and being in the news. It was father of advertising, David Ogilvy, who famously said that a sure-fire way of killing a bad product prematurely was to advertise it. When something substandard is advertised vigorously more people are tempted to buy it and they in the process get to know how bad it is faster than it would otherwise have been known to them. But, in politics, aggressive advertising helps even imbeciles go places as could be seen from some wealthy ignoramuses we are burdened with in Parliament and other political institutions. Sri Lankans vote for even anti-social elements like drug dealers, cattle rustlers, rapists and murderers, who conduct attractive election campaigns.

Both main candidates who are jousting for power have promised us a better country and if this pledge is honoured after the polls we will be lucky. But, sadly, most politicians, once ensconced in power, take a leaf out of Machiavelli’s book and adopt the policy that ‘the promise given was a necessity of the past and the word broken is a necessity of the present’. They get and forget and voters give and forgive. That is what elections are all about in this country.

Only one more day to go for the race all we can do is to batten down the hatches and wait with our fingers crossed. Let’s enjoy the calm before the storm as we have done umpteen times in the past. Que Sera Sera