the purchase of candidates of opposition parties for money

A significant element of the latest election campaign for the remaining local bodies in Sri Lanka, namely 23 councils scattered throughout the island is marred by the attempt of the Government to purchase candidates for money.

In Sajith Premadasa's district of Hambantota, one of his closest aides, Chrishantha Gajaweera (NO 6) Date of Birth being December 17th 1982, and contesting for the Hambantota Municipal Council was bought out for Rs3M. He was someone that Mr Premadasa depended on, admired and who was of great help over a period of years.

One contesting in Kotte for the Municipal Council Sandun Dilruk Gunesekera, of Nugegoda, sold his candidacy to the Government for Rs2million plus two Fish retail outlets at the Peliyagoda Fish Wholesale Market.

There are now rumors that three candidates from the CMC UNP list are about to turn, for Rs5M each. If you put yourself in the shoes of the candidate, then if he is in debt, not helped by the party, and sees a great windfall he will sell his grandmother for money, so selling his party for that seems to be chicken feed.

The point in this note is to look into not why it occurs as people can be bought for money, an age old international act, for what ever crime to be committed or not to commit. So how does one avoid this happening. I believe the law should be changed to prevent such happenings. After that is done, the party must do the necessary background checks and get commitments from the candidates a blue print of how they expect to carry out their candidature and that they would never forfeit their candidature. This is so as there are others who would have wanted to contest but could not owing to the limit for a party to be given nominations.

So let us hope that there is some dignity in politics, where in future such dirty lowdown behavior does not occur and we can return to clean politics once the scum of the current government are weeded out and extinguished.