by Malinda Seneviratne

The other day, an old friend of mine, commenting on the elections, said that since only the PA and the UNP can reasonably claim to be in the running (i.e. in terms of winning the most number of seats) only these parties need to be considered. Silly. And I told him so. The SLMC, the EPDP and the JVP have all "ruled" this country by virtue of the fact that they had a critical number of representatives in parliament, enough to play king-maker and extract "concessions".

The "beauty" of hung parliaments is just this; the ability for even a single-MP party to arm-twist the big boys and girls. I am not sure if this is good or bad. In principle, an elected government should not be held to ransom by anyone. On the other hand, given rampant rigging, one can never be certain of the legitimacy of a given government. More often than not we have had strange and violent creatures in power. Whether this justifies other strange and violent creatures putting a leash on them can never be an easy question to answer.

My friend seemed to be leaning towards the UNP this time. I asked him why. "We have to go with the lesser devil". I nearly puked! I am certainly no fan of the PA devil, but what is less evil about the UNP? Milinda Moragoda’s "clean" campaign? I am willing to bet that he is one of the biggest spenders around, considering all the campaign ads in newspapers, TV and internet websites not to mentioned an extensive letter-writing exercise to the voting population. I have some questions to ask this "environment-friendly" candidate. How many trees would have gone to make all the paper he used in these thousands and thousands of missives which came to our homes, all glossy and glittering? How come he is still to declare his assets and details of campaign contributions?

The UNP has no clear plan to overhaul the economy apart from appeasing the market war lords and we all know how they have brought countries like ours to our knees via sturctural adjustment, the GATT and so on. Today the UNP is also the surathala of racist minority parties. Reason enough to be apprehensive.

There’s more on this "lesser devil" in terms of its planned betrayal of Sinhala interests and aspirations. The UNP is still pussyfooting the issue of the LTTE. From "interim councils" (whose composition and timeframe the UNP has not elaborated on) to promises of negotiating with the LTTE, the UNP has clearly sent us the message that the Sinhalese are once again to be sidelined. Negotiating with the LTTE might sit well with SOLU-U but not with those who are acutely aware of what Prabhakaran wants and how he plans to obtain it.

SOLO-U (Society for Love and Understanding), I predict, will soon be writing love letters to Prabhakaran. That is if there already isn’t a healthy romantic commerce between the two parties, and all signs tell us that they are quite intimate. Last Sunday they came out with a aadara hasuna, this time addressed to the UNP (refer Sunday Times advertiesement). This is in response to a letter that Ranil Wickramasinghe had sent SOLO-U. Clearly, they have made their amarous intentions known to each other. The question is, where how does Prabhakaran figure in this?

SOLO-U and its not-so-secret other lovers, Sri Lanka First and the National Peace Council have all come out strong in support of Prabhakaran. These organisations have been "endorsed" by Linda Duffield, the British High Commissioner who has double standards, one for the Taliban and one for the LTTE. These are the real devils and the voter would do well to realise that the PA and the UNP are "lesser" devils only in relation to such people and this too only because these parties are bound to do their bidding, "captains of industry" that they are. (Note: I call them "Captains of profit extraction and resource plunder").

I managed to convince my friend that the word "lesser" is wrong, and that the more appropriate adjective would be "different". And this brings us to that other interesting notion, "the known devil" (also referred to as the People’s Alliance). These words are used so loosely, aren’t they? I mean, we all know how devilish the PA has been. The UNP’s devil-record is not less-known even though short memory is said to be our national ailment. Somawansa Amarasinghe’s home-coming also rekindled memories of the JVP’s devilish ways. These are all "known devils". No one in these parties can do the holier-than-thou thing. What would be really good for all of us is for all these devils to form a grand alliance. They could call it The Hell Collective or something. They should even be able to rope in the LTTE (and all its subsidiaries). Now that would be the foundation for a truly "national" government.

Tomorrow will be critical, naturally. If we are lucky we will get at least 10 people who will not be scared to say that the LTTE should not be mollycoddled. Hopefully there will be such people in all parties. Hopefully they will have the courage to see beyond self and party. Tomorrow will be critical, but only in the short-run. Defeating the LTTE and driving away devils calls for a much more broader and longer struggle. I have always claimed that this has to take place outside of party politics. It will take a social movement that is rooted in our cultural heritage, that can return to Buddhist philosophical tenets and especially their core social values and that can successfully engage in a reordering of our thinking in terms of co-existence and cooperation, among ourselves and with nature.

For now, let’s enjoy the moment. Tomorrow, for half a minute, we can pretend that we matter. The day after, we will not. Let us at least resolve to say ta-ta forever to all those politicians who are bound to say ta-ta to the people the moment they get elected. That will be the beginning of the great exorcising of evil spirits our society desperately needs.