A resounding restatement of trust

The pro-President Mahinda Rajapaksa and pro-UPFA electoral groundswell continued into the third and final phase of the Local Government elections over the weekend with the ruling coalition resoundingly winning the majority of councils which went to the polls. This is incontrovertible proof that the majority of the people of this country are continuing to be with the President and the UPFA government. Popular support for the President and his government, then, is a living, breathing reality.

The secret of the UPFA’s remarkable successes in even one time UNP strongholds, such as, Kandy and Nuwara Eliya Municipal Councils, is the enduring and vibrant popularity of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. There is no doubt that his stirring presence in the relevant areas of the country during the polls campaign helped in a major way to bring victory to the ruling coalition. In other words, the President himself and the ‘Mahinda Chinthana, Forward Vision’ are continuing to receive the ringing endorsement of the ordinary people of this country.

What accounts significantly for the continuing personal appeal of President Rajapaksa is the pivotal role he played in ridding this country of the 30 year terror scourge and the string of electoral successes that is coming the UPFA way is glowing testimony that the ordinary people of this land are enduringly grateful to the President for this wonderful gift of peaceful living. There is also a lot that is happening by way of infrastructure development and the continuing popular trust in the President and the government is the evidence that the difficult lot of the ordinary people is being eased to some degree.

However, position and authority are not ends in themselves and the onus is now on the elected representatives of the people to give a good account of themselves as the servants of the people. Control over almost the totality of Local Government bodies of the South, invests the President and the ruling coalition with the ability of going full steam ahead with the development process. It is an opportunity for fulfilling the just aspirations and needs of the people that should not be squandered. Accordingly, we call on the President and the government to ensure that this historic opportunity is exploited to the fullest of taking development over the entire length and breadth of Sri Lanka. In the course of doing this, it must be remembered that development is always measured in terms of how comfortably and within their means the ordinary people of this country acquire their basic essentials, such as, food, clothing, shelter and medicines.

Therefore, the pressing needs of the people need to be fulfilled and that too in double-quick time. This would require the elected representatives of the people to be on their toes and the President and his team of ministers should ensure that this is always the case. If necessary, the whip must be cracked to get things moving. It is by doing so that the government could live-up to the trust reposed in it by the people. It is important that these elected representatives, as mentioned, bear in mind that the authority they have been endowed with is not an end in itself but the means of meeting the people’s needs. This golden rule should be always driven into the minds of the representatives of the people at the numerous tiers of government.

This point needs to be laboured because it is usually observed in the breach. The mayhem in Mulleriyawa on Saturday which claimed the life a prominent politician should remind all concerned of the dangers in glossing over or forgetting these essential norms of governance. It is no easy task to decriminalize local politics in view of the proportions this terrible blight has taken over the years but we have to persist in this task of ushering value-based politics. The errant and criminally-inclined politician must be taken to task or brought to justice and this vital responsibility devolves on our political establishment. There is no avoiding this responsibility.

The task of our polity could be made easy by preventing the criminally-inclined and the perverse from entering politics. This issue has bedeviled local politics from the mid-seventies and it is a matter for deep regret that little or nothing has been done by way of addressing the problem. But this stubborn monster must be taken by the horns and subdued if real progress is to be ushered-in.

In a way, the task is not as complicated as it may seem. It is the enjoyment of unlimited power that gives rise to its wanton abuse. When the exercise of power goes unchecked, its gross abuse should only be expected. Therefore, the installation of tighter checks and balances at every level at which power is exercised, is one of the most effective safeguards against power abuse.