What if it was Bahu Vs Wijekoon election?

I was asked recently by a reader to reflect a little on what would happen if the Presidential Election turned out to be a fight between Wickramabahu Karunaratne and Ukku Banda Wijekoon. I laughed when I read that email but later realized that we have been conditioned to see Presidential elections in Sri Lanka as an inevitable fight between a UNP candidate and an SLFP candidate.

Of course we have had candidates from other parties but there has never been anyone with even a remote chance of either winning or impacting the outcome by ensuring that neither of the frontrunners obtains 50 percent of the votes plus one. It is not that the candidates are less colourful or that they don’t have more cogent and appealing manifestos; it’s just that our body politic has been consumed by two virulent cancers called the UNP and SLFP. We just opt for consolation prizes, pick one face over another, latch on to part program and ignore the thrust of agenda presented to us.

Presidential elections then have been affairs where ‘others’ get an hour or two of glory on national television, a few articles in the newspapers and an opportunity to articulate their pet concerns. We are so consumed by antipathy to one of the two inevitable frontrunners that we pick one by way of default; we don’t vote ‘for’ but we vote ‘against’.

But elections are fun events, regardless. The other day I saw a poster in support of Sarath Fonseka where a UNP Provincial Counsellor, Muzammil, dubbed the candidate as the ‘Nombara Eke UNP Kaaraya’ (The No. 1 UNPer!). I wished comrades Tilvin, Somawansa, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Vijitha Herath and Sunil Handunneththi were around so I could rub their silly looking faces on that poster which I think is the No. 1 Revelation that the JVP does not have eyes to see.

Then there’s the matter of ‘trust’. Some people think and say they have agreements with Sarath Fonseka but Fonseka says there are none. Someone made an interesting and logical suggestion: Fonseka should issue a statement in Tamil and English saying that he has no agreement, verbal or written, with the TNA. Will he? And will the TNA likewise issue a statement in Tamil and English affirming this position? Elections are about lies and it is fun telling people that we notice they’ve slipped, lied, vomited, flip-flopped etc.

Elections are about mudslinging and mud-catching. Purely on the basis of what has transpired in all important elections from 1977 (I have only vague recollection of the ’70 election and in fact only remember some adults listening to results over a radio in Kandana, my father’s ancestral home) I think that the UNP (or UNP-led front) and the SLFP (or SLFP-led coalition) should change party symbols to ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’. What do you think?

Given that the voter has currency only until the polls close on election day, I think we might as well have some fun in this brief time when politicians treat us with respect, worship us, shower us with compliments and even try to purchase loyalty and vote. This is why I thought it worthwhile to play with the Bahu Vs Wijekoon idea.

If the Presidential election was decided solely on the basis of consistency, then I am sure Wickramabahu Karunaratne would win hands down. He has for decades advocated the division of the country. He has been more consistent and vociferous in articulating Eelamism than the most ardent LTTE ideologue or proxy. Leader of the TNA R. Sambandan and Mangala Samaraweera’s latest darling and companion-on-a-journey-to-Eelam is no more than a has-been dying to find a way to get back to Parliament. Fonseka may have promised him a National List slot courtesy of the UNP. What’s Sambandan compared to Comrade Bahu, though, when it comes to asserting as fact all the myths of ‘exclusive traditional homelands of the Tamils’?

Bahu is live these days because he believes that Fonseka has stolen his manifesto. He believes that dividing the country and facilitating the creation of a separate state called Eelam is his preserve and thinks Fonseka is a political pickpocket for pledging Eelam (in all but name) to the TNA. I am sure he is secretly happy because what matters after all is the furthering of agenda and not personality. If Fonseka delivered what Prabhakaran couldn’t, does it matter if it is the delivery and not deliverer that counts?

On the other hand, the Tamil voter should not trust those who have shown an indecent greed for power. Bahu has articulated unpopular views for years and years. He deserves a good-look from the Tamil voter. And others too, since we are talking about ‘consistency’ and not right, wrong, logical, illogical, beneficial or destructive.

How about U.B. Wijekoon? Whereas Bahu might win if it was only about consistency, he would be crushed on account of idiocy. This is where someone like Wijekoon has a definite edge. No one can accuse him of advocating rubbish based on rubbish and to be delivered with rubbish. I have not scrutinized him enough to offer him a blank cheque. On the other hand, considering that some people are silly enough to give a proven miscreant a black cheque on something as intangible and ephemeral as ‘trust’, and this despite his refusal to clarify serious questions on his character including theft, misappropriations, nepotism, two-tongued rhetoric, lying etc, Wijekoon is the veritable saint.

He cannot be accused on not delivering promises made. Of course he was not asked to rid the country of terrorism, but then again he was not in a position to take on such a task either. We can say that as a former Member of Parliament and a former Minister he was well positioned to fatten himself. All we have to do is to compare him with anyone else who has been in Parliament for as long and compare the weight-changes that have occurred on all counts, pure weight, bank balance, asset base etc. Wijekoon never asked for land and didn’t complain that the amount given was too small. He has never fiddled around with tender procedures, as far as I know.

Wijekoon has not been partial to any community. He has never been accused of religious fundamentalism. Whereas Bahu’s sanity can be questioned on a number of counts, Wijekoon comes off as a sensible, down-to-earth gentleman.

Imagine a Bahu-Wijekoon debate. I am sure Bahu will through the complete works of Marx, Engles, Lenin and Trotsky at Wijekoon. Wijekoon would take a few hits, given his age, but he will remain standing taller than Bahu at the end of the day.

I know that not many people are thinking about Bahu and Wijekoon, but let’s face it, such a stand-off is far more appealing than the Rajapaksa-Fonseka fight, right? In the latter case, we see Fonseka punching himself in the face and Rajapaksa looking far more Presidential and Statesman-like than does justice to his track record as a result. In a Bahu-Wijekoon duel, on the other hand, we would see two candidates without make-up, un-‘cosmeticked’ individuals without an entourage of clowns, sycophants and mudslingers. We would get the kind of clean election that Dayananda Dissanayake and the various Municipal Councils, Urban Councils and Pradeshiya Sabhas can only dream of now.

This will all be over on January 26, 2010. Remember folks that this is not going to be the last election to be held in Sri Lanka. Let us all work towards a time when the Bahus and Wijekoons do not necessarily become ‘also-rans’ and where the usual frontrunners are forced to take a backseat. As for the Bahu-Wijekoon contest, my vote goes to old U.B. Sorry, Bahu, your Eelam-promise does not appeal to me (it is bound to sink Fonseka by the way).

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