The forthcoming elections are timed to take the focus away from the real issues

The constant holding of elections in our democracy, where the Government uses all the resources at its disposal whether legal or illegal, is bad for good governance and fairness. The request to hold all the Provincial Council (PC) elections in one day has fallen on deaf ears, as not one to be even considered. It is a shame that the resource poor opposition has to fight an uphill battle to explain to a nation fed on lies, that there are credible alternatives to the present status quo.

The expected dissolution shortly of 3 PC’s and the announcement of elections in September is the political buzz, which is galvanizing the opposition into a frenzy, of how they can with very limited resources, fairly fight this government. That it is difficult is well known and before the economic situation gets worse, the state wishes to complete this first phase.

All political parties will be focused in getting their organization in place, which as the topic of the essay says, will take their focus away from the day to day problems facing the people. Even an election campaign highlighting this issue, has to face counter arguments put forward of temporary inconveniences that will soon disappear and a govt. media blitz aimed at misinforming people of the true situation.

This neutralizing of the problem as being one put forward by the opposition and caused by the opposition, can be cunningly explained when the airwaves and Television is dominated by the govt, owned stations. Their reach to the masses, far exceeds that of the private independent channels, and hence assures them of a monopoly in the evening news in people’s homes.

The opposition has to find a more battle hardened approach to explain to the public the situation by going into homes on a one on one basis to explain why the information they receive is suspect. It is hard, but not impossible. It takes determination, time and patience and needs recruits in numbers all of which together is essential, but hard to find and organize.

There is only one political party remotely able to do this and must gather its forces into a focused approach without delay. Who else than the UNP!