Features

A season of fun & frolic

Published

2 years ago

2024/05/5

Thilina Walpola

Every pantaloon is running loose

by Kumar David

What larks! Ranil can’t make up his mind whether he is the UNP or SLPP (the party of government bearing fealty to Mahinda) candidate. Mahinda’s colour is a beastly cherry; “the workers’ dye is purple now, it got mixed up with blue somehow” goes the ditty. Sajith is torn between a deal with the UNP (Ranil), or going it solo, or come what may, stitching together some other combine.

The perkiest comedy in town is the SLFP where they are quarrelling about, (i) whether Mrs B’s endowments were masculine enough and whether her voice sufficiently gruff, (ii) whether Pissu Sira should be declared a certified lunatic, and (iii) whether Wijeyadasa should sit on this side or that side of the aisle or park his rump in the gangway between. The political scene in Lanka these April days is a Spring Festival of fun and frolic; every political dunce and pantaloon is running wild.

All this jostling and jockeying is in anticipation of the menacing day when the Elections Commissioner will call upon all men, good and true, to submit nominations for the Presidential Elections due later this year. The glaring addition needed to the line-up in the previous para is Anura Kumara who is likely to score a plurality, but perhaps not a majority on the first count. If you want me to guess; Anura may collect up to 40% and a Ranil-Sajith combo with SLPP riff-raff appended may garner, say, 25%. However, the dark-horse in the current topsy-turvy is the SLFP as I will explain anon.

Since I am writing the article I have to put down numbers, otherwise you will stop reading. So, what the hell, can I spit out 15% for the still residual SLFP national base-vote? Let’s add: 40+25+15 makes 80%. This leaves 20% for all the other riff-raff; cranks like Patali, mentally deranged Field Marshals and assorted candidates offering themselves in the first round of the Presidential Election. Come on, this a fair way doing the sums at this early looney stage. Play with the numbers if you will but your guesses won’t be much different from mine eventually.

Now comes the interesting part. If no candidate scores over 50% on first count, the second preferences cast for the first two, and ONLY these two candidates, are tallied and added to the relevant person. Note this carefully. All other second preference votes are discarded. Second preference votes cast by supporters of all other candidates and for all other candidates are discarded. This seems both illogical and unreasonable but see “Counting Second Preferences” below for further comment.

Now, only a complete nut of an Anura-voter will cast a second preference for the UNP-SJB-SLPP block, and vice-versa. That is no UNP-SJB-SLPP voter in his/her right senses will give a second preference to Anura either. (SJB is Samagi Balavegaya, Sajith’s party). Hence when these relevant or permitted second preferences are included, the absolute number of votes for Anura and the UNP-SJB-SLPP block will remain almost unaltered. I call this the Prohibited Cross Voting (PCV) assumption. So, Anura will be elected president by a margin of 40 to 25 in the afore enumerated scenario. This is a stylised example but is intended to illustrate the lie-of-the-land. Let me explain it a little more.

Implications of PCV behavioural assumption

First let me repeat because it is vital though you will find it obvious when you think it over. Say the results of the first vote count are candidate-A (say Anura) is placed first, and candidate-B (the principal opposition candidate) is placed second, or of course, vice-versa. Then the “Prohibited Cross Voting” (PCV) thesis ensures that the candidate who wins the first round will inevitably become the president because the total votes and the relative positions of these two candidates will NOT change because of the PCV behavioural assumption.

Please take a moment to mull this over, though it is self-evident once you get the hang of it. Win the first count and you are the president! Your relative position (total number of votes) will hardly change a jot thanks to the PCV behavioural assumption. Say the first candidate polls 5,550,000 and the second polls 5, 500,00 at the first count. Then after the second count (tallying of second preferences) neither will poll hardly one vote more or one vote less if voters strictly adhere to PCV. Win the first count (round) and you are president, home and dry! PCV underpins this essay but it has other significant consequences as you will see as you read on.

Then the crucial point is how valid is the PCV assumption? In general, and in other countries it may not hold, but violation of PCV is hardly thinkable in present day Lanka and at the upcoming presidential election. Imagine an Anura voter casting his second preference for candidate-B (a Sajith-UNP-SLPP etc offering) or a voter who gives first choice to candidate-B giving second choice to Anura. Unthinkable! Voters may spew out second choices anywhere they wish to and to anyone they like, but not to the principal opponent candidate says the PCV behavioural model’s assumption.

This has crucial implications for Lanka’s political dullards with bursting waistlines in white national-dress costumes protruding at the waist and jutting at the posterior. But they will soon wake up as nomination-day approaches and implications for future scams and graft dawn on these dullards. The most important point is that though the SLFP is in shambles right now and the goings-on are a fool’s carnival, it could emerge as a king-maker. To do so, it must join the candidate-B camp and line up behind this candidate formally. Then we may have candidate-B, including the SLFP, polling say just over 40% while Anura polls say just less than 40%. Anura is then edged out of the presidency if PCV strictly holds. (It may not hold, because some SLFP voters in camp-B may not play strictly by PCV and may be tempted to cast their second preference for Anura, in violation of PCV behaviour. This is possible if you recall that the SLFP once upon a time thought of itself as a left force).

Counting second preferences

I carefully discussed the way second preferences are counted with a lawyer and Oxonian who says he is an expert on the matter. He assured me that second preference votes cast for all candidates except the first and second are discarded. Furthermore, only second preferences among (within) the first two candidates themselves are taken into account he said.

Second preferences cast by supporters of all other candidates, even for the first two, are discarded he says. (This is the reason for my previous 5.55 and 5.50 million vote examples). This is an absurd system and defeats the whole purpose of giving voters a second preference vote. I must check this expert lawyer’s opinion with other informed people.

DBS Jeyaraj joins the fun and frolic

I will not question DBS’s personal integrity at this point but his prominent recent column “RW’s Caravan Moves on Despite Barking Dogs” is some panegyric! If it had been crafted in consultation with Ranil himself it could not have been more laudatory. DBS argues that Ranil has managed to hold diverse political forces together within the government, that he has retained the support of Ministers and State Ministers that he inherited from Gotabaya, and most important, DBS claims that only Ranil can pull the country out of the deep morass it has sunk into in the last two years and that he is capable of leading Lanka to economic recovery. Phew! The scribes at Dinamina are surely burning the midnight oil rendering this encomium into Sinhala. DBS’s views also reflect the thinking of educated Tamils and to a degree of pro-capitalist business classes, so they are worth reflecting over.

A previous draft of this article appeared in Colombo Telegraph. This version however takes precedence.

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Features

Maduro abduction marks dangerous aggravation of ‘world disorder’

Published

10 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Venezuelan President Maduro being taken to a court in New York

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by US special forces on January 3rd and his coercive conveying to the US to stand trial over a number of allegations leveled against him by the Trump administration marks a dangerous degeneration of prevailing ‘world disorder’. While some cardinal principles in International Law have been blatantly violated by the US in the course of the operation the fallout for the world from the exceptionally sensational VVIP abduction could be grave.

Although controversial US military interventions the world over are not ‘news’ any longer, the abduction and hustling away of a head of government, seen as an enemy of the US, to stand trial on the latter soil amounts to a heavy-handed and arrogant rejection of the foundational principles of international law and order. It would seem, for instance, that the concept of national sovereignty is no longer applicable to the way in which the world’s foremost powers relate to the rest of the international community. Might is indeed right for the likes of the US and the Trump administration in particular is adamant in driving this point home to the world.

Chief spokesmen for the Trump administration have been at pains to point out that the abduction is not at variance with national security related provisions of the US Constitution. These provisions apparently bestow on the US President wide powers to protect US security and stability through courses of action that are seen as essential to further these ends but the fact is that International Law has been brazenly violated in the process in the Venezuelan case.

To be sure, this is not the first occasion on which a head of government has been abducted by US special forces in post-World War Two times and made to stand trial in the US, since such a development occurred in Panama in 1989, but the consequences for the world could be doubly grave as a result of such actions, considering the mounting ‘disorder’ confronting the world community.

Those sections opposed to the Maduro abduction in the US would do well to from now on seek ways of reconciling national security-related provisions in the US Constitution with the country’s wider international commitment to uphold international peace and law and order. No ambiguities could be permitted on this score.

While the arbitrary military action undertaken by the US to further its narrow interests at whatever cost calls for criticism, it would be only fair to point out that the US is not the only big power which has thus dangerously eroded the authority of International Law in recent times. Russia, for example, did just that when it violated the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading it two or more years ago on some nebulous, unconvincing grounds. Consequently, the Ukraine crisis too poses a grave threat to international peace.

It is relevant to mention in this connection that authoritarian rulers who hope to rule their countries in perpetuity as it were, usually end up, sooner rather than later, being a blight on their people. This is on account of the fact that they prove a major obstacle to the implementation of the democratic process which alone holds out the promise of the progressive empowerment of the people, whereas authoritarian rulers prefer to rule with an iron fist with a fixation about self-empowerment.

Nevertheless, regime-change, wherever it may occur, is a matter for the public concerned. In a functional democracy, it is the people, and the people only, who ‘make or break’ governments. From this viewpoint, Russia and Venezuela are most lacking. But externally induced, militarily mediated change is a gross abnormality in the world of democracy, which deserves decrying.

By way of damage control, the US could take the initiative to ensure that the democratic process, read as the full empowerment of ordinary people, takes hold in Venezuela. In this manner the US could help in stemming some of the destructive fallout from its abduction operation. Any attempts by the US to take possession of the national wealth of Venezuela at this juncture are bound to earn for it the condemnation of democratic opinion the world over.

Likewise, the US needs to exert all its influence to ensure that the rights of ordinary Ukrainians are protected. It will need to ensure this while exploring ways of stopping further incursions into Ukrainian territory by Russia’s invading forces. It will need to do this in collaboration with the EU which is putting its best foot forward to end the Ukraine blood-letting.

Meanwhile, the repercussions that the Maduro abduction could have on the global South would need to be watched with some concern by the international community. Here too the EU could prove a positive influence since it is doubtful whether the UN would be enabled by the big powers to carry out the responsibilities that devolve on it with the required effectiveness.

What needs to be specifically watched is the ‘copycat effect’ that could manifest among those less democratically inclined Southern rulers who would be inspired by the Trump administration to take the law into their hands, so to speak, and act with callous disregard for the sovereign rights of their smaller and more vulnerable neighbours.

Democratic opinion the world over would need to think of systems of checks and balances that could contain such power abuse by Southern autocratic rulers in particular. The UN and democracy-supportive organizations, such as the EU, could prove suitable partners in these efforts.

All in all it is international lawlessness that needs managing effectively from now on. If President Trump carries out his threat to over-run other countries as well in the manner in which he ran rough-shod over Venezuela, there is unlikely to remain even a semblance of international order, considering that anarchy would be receiving a strong fillip from the US, ‘The World’s Mightiest Democracy’.

What is also of note is that identity politics in particularly the South would be unprecedentedly energized. The narrative that ‘the Great Satan’ is running amok would win considerable validity among the theocracies of the Middle East and set the stage for a resurgence of religious fanaticism and invigorated armed resistance to the US. The Trump administration needs to stop in its tracks and weigh the pros and cons of its current foreign policy initiatives.

Features

Pure Christmas magic and joy at British School

Published

10 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Students of The British High School in Colombo in action at the fashion show

The British School in Colombo (BSC) hosted its Annual Christmas Carnival 2025, ‘Gingerbread Wonderland’, which was a huge success, with the students themseles in the spotlight, managing stalls and volunteering.

The event, organised by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), featured a variety of activities, including: Games and rides for all ages, Food stalls offering delicious treats, Drinks and refreshments, Trade booths showcasing local products, and Live music and entertainment.

The carnival was held at the school premises, providing a fun and festive atmosphere for students, parents, and the community to enjoy.

The halls of the BSC were filled with pure Christmas magic and joy with the students and the staff putting on a tremendous display.

Among the highlights was the dazzling fashion show with the students doing the needful, and they were very impressive.

The students themselves were eagerly looking forward to displaying their modelling technique and, I’m told, they enjoyed the moment they had to step on the ramp.

The event supported communities affected by the recent floods, with surplus proceeds going to flood-relief efforts.

Features

Glowing younger looking skin

Published

10 hours ago

2026/01/8

Sahan Weerasooriya

Hi! This week I’m giving you some beauty tips so that you could look forward to enjoying 2026 with a glowing younger looking skin.

Face wash for natural beauty

* Avocado:

Take the pulp, make a paste of it and apply on your face. Leave it on for five minutes and then wash it with normal water.

* Cucumber:

Just rub some cucumber slices on your face for 02-03 minutes to cleanse the oil naturally. Wash off with plain water.

* Buttermilk:

Apply all over your face and leave it to dry, then wash it with normal water (works for mixed to oily skin).

Face scrub for natural beauty

Take 01-02 strawberries, 02 pieces of kiwis or 02 cubes of watermelons. Mash any single fruit and apply on your face. Then massage or scrub it slowly for at least 3-5 minutes in circular motions. Then wash it thoroughly with normal or cold water. You can make use of different fruits during different seasons, and see what suits you best! Follow with a natural face mask.

Face Masks

* Papaya and Honey:

Take two pieces of papaya (peeled) and mash them to make a paste. Apply evenly on your face and leave it for 30 minutes and then wash it with cold water.

Papaya is just not a fruit but one of the best natural remedies for good health and glowing younger looking skin. It also helps in reducing pimples and scars. You can also add honey (optional) to the mixture which helps massage and makes your skin glow.

* Banana:

Put a few slices of banana, 01 teaspoon of honey (optional), in a bowl, and mash them nicely. Apply on your face, and massage it gently all over the face for at least 05 minutes. Then wash it off with normal water. For an instant glow on your face, this facemask is a great idea to try!

* Carrot:

Make a paste using 01 carrot (steamed) by mixing it with milk or honey and apply on your face and neck evenly. Let it dry for 15-20 minutes and then wash it with cold water. Carrots work really well for your skin as they have many vitamins and minerals, which give instant shine and younger-looking skin.