Consciousness of the public

The fickle consciousness of the public is legendary and we realize that politicians depend greatly on yet another fact – namely, the very poor memory of voters. The sheer effrontery of leaders of the LAST Government who make criticisms on the economic policies of the PRESENT Government makes our adrenalin levels rise dangerously. The last Government BEGAN with the economic disaster of the Bond Scam. No one took the blame. No one was punished. Yet past Ministers and leaders have the NERVE to still talk, talk, talk ad nauseum of the mistakes that others are making or are going to make.

The leaders of the last government seem to be conducting contented postmortems of their own which I am sure some of them are too intelligent to actually believe. Do reporters themselves not report these silly opinions (for they are really mighty silly) with a high degree of disbelief? It is well said that a Govt. which can forget its past history has no future history.

All this talk of DEMOCRACY being at stake is also laughable. The self proclaimed leader of the democratic world sent thousands to their deaths by his cavalier attitude towards the Corona virus. Our own President protected us. We accept this with deep gratitude.

And let us look at Democracies anyway. The Greek model worked because it was a direct system. Not the all the populations of the Greek City States were citizens. The vast number of them were slaves who had no vote. Injustice, corruption, elitism and economic disasters are all a part of a Democracy. One of Churchill’s better known comments was that the best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with a voter. Indeed most of us wear a permanent patina of discontent with the way ‘Democracy’ is handled in Sri Lanka.

Elections will bring us a new Government. We hope desperately it will prove worthy of the trust voters place in it. We hope it will follow Gotabaya Rajapakse’s example and govern with dignity, panache and efficiency. Action, with less talk is his hallmark. All Ministers and MPs would do well to do likewise.

We hope the new Government will not display the insane hubris of many of our past Ministers and will tone down their public pronouncements and public appearances. We hope OUR money will not be wasted on uneducated MPs……. on their cars, their security, their absurd salaries, their hanger-on relatives to mention a few things we voters really regard as ‘Un-Democratic’. Our dwindling resources can do with a drastic cutting down of Ministerial mismanagement (the fiasco of Education being a case in point.)

Sri Lanka could be such an easy country to govern. We have everything right here. A small population, a pleasant climate, a rich soil ( which is not adequately made use of) an extremely intelligent people and a geographical placement that makes us highly important to the rest of the world. Surely we can elect a Government that will make Sri Lanka a contented and successful country and one which can again be regarded as the best run in South East Asia?

Goolbai Gunasekara