Fire power

MUSINGS: The election office of the Philippine Government had been gutted by a fire, a report said. A few days later came another report that a Swiss national was sentenced to a long jail term for spraying a poster of the Thai king with black paint. Though the two episodes are unrelated they could no doubt provide for interesting musings among our own countrymen.

Imagine the Sri Lanka’s Elections Secretariat at Rajagiriya engulfed in a fire. Cynics may well describe this as democracy in flames.

They may have ample reason to justify their claims going by past happenings on election day, its prelude and aftermath. Isn’t the Elections Commissioner himself a man constantly under fire - a man who wants to resign his post pleading ill-health but has compelled to remain in office by a Supreme Court ruling.

Anyway isn’t our Commissioner acting as if his mind is on fire ‘Oluwa gini arang’ during the election period although he conducts himself like a house on fire while announcing the results.

The same cynics might want to refer to the instance where several ballot boxes were set on fire during polling day to buttress their argument that the Elections Secretariat may as well go up in smoke.

They may also recall how the whole election process was manipulated by a particular head of state with a view to wielding perennial power to point to the redundancy of the Elections Secretariat. Wasn’t there also talk such as rolling the election map, making the Elections Commissioner a mere figurehead.

These cynics would rather have the Election Secretariat on fire than have legislators setting fire to Parliament which a bunch of opposition MPs nearly did some time ago when they lit bonfires of a draft constitution in the august assembly.

We are not aware of what the response of the people of the Philippines are to their elections office going up in smoke. But in Sri Lanka this wouldn’t have caused a big ha-ho.

For wasn’t it not so long ago that there were mini election offices in Police stations, particularly in the South during the period of turmoil, with ruling party politicians occupying the OIC’s chair on election day presiding over massive rigging.

Surely our erstwhile elections Commissioner would have wished his office went up in a blazing inferno at the indignity shown to his exalted office. He would also have wished his office went up in smoke the day a Presidential candidate had his vote cast by another individual which vote was accepted in the final tally. Nor the day he was called into annul votes at several polling stations marked by vote rigging.

One should also not discount the possibility of Philippine experience being replicated here. We have already seen record rooms at Police Headquarters go up in flames and with it the case files of many criminals and drug barons.

As a symbol of the country’s democratic edifice it may be still act as red rag on certain political parties who wanted to dethrone the system some time ago, though now these worthies are ensconced in the seats of power by laying a red-herring to the voters.

Interestingly the defacing of the poster of the Thai King some would say is intrinsically linked with our elections culture and the Commissioner who it would be recalled constantly enjoins candidates against having their mugs displayed in public places.

Here the Commissioner would have an unlikely ally in the Swiss poster dauber which would negate even the need for the costly ‘poster buster’ employed by the Colombo Municipal Council. He would be given free rein to practise his art.

And how he would love to going about his task give the avalanche of grinning posters of imposters defacing our walls.

Rambler