Do not give enemy a chance

The edict issued by President Mahinda Rajapaksa to Government Ministers to lie low during upcoming election campaigns is a timely one coming as it does in the aftermath of Tuesday's abortive attempt by the LTTE on the lives of a group of Government Ministers.

Concurrently the Government has also issued security guidelines to be followed at VVIP meetings and also made it compulsory for obtaining Defence clearance for national events with public participation.

It has also requested the politicians to limit celebrations involving participation of the people. In short the Government has taken cognizance of the looming danger in our midst in the final stage of the war where the LTTE is bound to throw every last ounce of its energies to scuttle a military victory.

One of its strategies no doubt will be targeting politicians in the South and this has already been put into motion. For, the aim of the Tigers now would be to strike at the core of administration with the forlorn hope of crippling its resolve to finish off the war.

This, the President is fully aware of and hence his directives to his Ministers to curtail their public appearances.

It is not as if there had been any serious flaws in our VIP security although certain pundits tend to be wise after the event and point to security lapses. The flaw lay in the VIPs themselves dispensing with security guidelines to closely cultivate the public.

The LTTE is well aware of this Achilles Heel of our politicians. Had not President Premadasa dropped his guard and walked freely on a public thoroughfare on the fateful May Day he would not have been such an easy target. Ditto for Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle.

Of course one can argue that politicians need the public for their existence, nay survival, though this may not always hold true. Certain politicians do not sight their electorates after assuming office and tend to depend on the reflected glory of the overall Government achievements such as the present victories on the war front.

Therefore Government politicians today are at an advantage as never before and would not find it difficult to keep away from public appearances though they may covet being in the public glare.

An added incentive to them would be the President's declaring that there would be no general election in the near future so that they may not gear themselves up for a mad race for preference votes thus exposing themselves as soft targets to the terrorists.

Hopefully this trend would continue forever bringing about a calm atmosphere in local electioneering which had reached a nadir over the years. For, with the politicians out of the scene campaigning there is likely to be less violence and election malpractices during the hustings.

To those who followed the recent US Presidential elections the battles were mostly waged over the electronic media and which had a profound effect on the American voter, rather than any open canvassing by the candidates. Whether our politicians have reached such sophistication will remain a question mark.

However they would do well to take a leaf out of this style of campaigning and think of getting their message out to their voters through the electronic media rather than taking to the streets with a retinue of supporters in tow exposing all and sundry to the ever present danger.

The VIPs who have perished while on the campaign trail in Sri Lanka are too numerous to mention.

Suffice it to say that the nation lost the services of some of the most able politicians.

Hopefully the present security threat would change the pattern of our electioneering and bring about a breath of fresh air to politics as a whole.

The low key electioneering would no doubt cause less nuisance to the public and above all prevent clashes between rival supporters often resulting in death and destruction to property.

In short, pave the way for a new political culture in the country.

A welcome move

The first ever 'Park and Ride' facility in Sri Lanka that came into operation yesterday would hopefully be a precursor to similar traffic schemes in different parts of the country that would help greatly ease traffic congestion while also helping the country cut down on its fuel bill.

According to the new scheme a super luxury coach service 'CityLiner' will ferry motorists who will park their vehicles at a location in Katubedda, to the city proper and back at designated times.

As reported in our pages yesterday over 200,000 private vehicles enter the city daily and these vehicles clog all the cities main arteries causing traffic chaos and a nightmare for the Traffic police.

The vehicle park in Katubedda will provide parking facilities to 150 vehicles. As a pilot project its success will see many more such mega parking bays being set up at vital points in the outer city limits that would greatly limit the inflow of vehicles into the centre of the capital now bursting with the massive volume of vehicles.

The move while giving some breathing space to the country's commercial hub would also be beneficial in other ways such as cleaner environment free of air pollution and also to provide more scope for our city planners to make Colombo the "Garden City of Asia" an honour it enjoyed in the past.