We Sri Lankans do three things right. We watch cricket obsessively, engage in politics fanatically and view TV madly. Other things including work can always wait. That is why politicians, cricketers and television stars have become, so to speak, demigods. We are not alone in breathing cricket and sleeping cricket. That fixation is part of a colonial legacy cherished by many Commonwealth nations. As for TV, most nations have gone square-eyed like us with their attention spans decreasing rapidly.

The real problem is with politics. There may be only a few other nations that are as fixated as we are on politics. Nothing is considered complete in this country without a touch of politics––from religious ceremonies to the opening of public conveniences. Our fixation with politics has helped even the scum of the earth, like infamous 'Dr. Delipihiya', go great guns.

We had PC polls last Saturday and the results were announced the following day. But, politicians have not yet allowed the country to put those elections behind it. The government is deriving some sadistic pleasure by, so to speak, twisting the knife and the Opposition has not yet come to terms with its defeat.

As if premature PC polls had not been enough, some government politicians threatened the other day to go for a parliamentary election 'to teach the Opposition another lesson'! The Opposition, not to be outdone, has insisted that a parliamentary election be held. It is like an athlete who fails to qualify at SAF Games aspiring to win an Olympic gold!

Both parties have not read the people's verdict properly. The government ought to realise that everything is not hunky-dory for it. Its number of seats has dropped, compared to the 2004 PC polls results, though it has managed to secure a convincing majority. And the Opposition should be wise enough to concede that it has been routed, though its votes and number of seats recorded a marginal increase.

Yesterday, an Opposition politician said that according to a survey conducted before Saturday's polls, the UNP should have won comfortably. Survey results, more often than not, are deceptive. Those who conducted different surveys before the 2005 Presidential Election made different predictions. Some said UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would win easily and others said SLFP candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa would sweep the polls. In the end, the SLFP candidate won but he failed to secure a huge majority.

That is the way with the pre-polls surveys. Here is another example from New Zealand. Keith Locke, a Green Party candidate, commissioned a survey before an election in 2005. Its results indicated a landslide victory for him. So, a cocky Locke told his electorate that he would run naked in public, if his rival won. Unfortunately, Locke lost. And he came under pressure to honour his promise. Finally, he did a dash on a public road, wearing a G-string.

Minister Mervyn Silva also offered to resign if UNP Chief Ministerial candidate for the NCP Janaka Perera polled a single preferential vote more than a disabled soldier on the SLFP list. Janaka received the highest number of preferential votes in the Anuradhapura District. People, we believe, voted for him in Anuradhapura with a view to getting rid of Mervyn in Kelaniya! But they were mistaken, Mervyn stays put.

JVP MP Lal Kantha also made a similar promise in Parliament recently on the eve of an abortive strike. He said he would resign, if a single bus plied during the strike. Almost all the buses ran on that day but Lal Kantha did not honour his promise.

A prerequisite for problem- solving is the identification of a problem. Time was when the SLFP refused to concede defeat at elections without addressing the causes of its poor performance, the main being a bitter intra party dispute. It lost several elections for 17 years in a row from 1977 onwards. True, there were rigging and election violence but if the SLFP had done a dispassionate appraisal of its strength and solved its problems, it could have made use of several opportunities it had during that period to turn the tables on the UNP. The UNP is in a similar predicament today. If it waits till the abuse of state power ends and elections become completely free and fair to secure power, it will have to be in the Opposition till kingdom come.

The JVP has, despite all its faults, admitted its setback and promised to make a comeback sooner or later. It has said this is not the first time it has been routed in politics and that every time it was defeated it bounced back. Identifying a problem, as was said earlier, is half the battle in overcoming a crisis. Let the JVP be wished good luck!

Meanwhile, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has ruled out a snap parliamentary election. A general election is a worrisome proposition for any president. If a president's party loses power in Parliament, he or she is automatically reduced to an executive peon, as was the harrowing experience of President Chandrika Kumaratunga from 2001 to 2004.

In such a situation, the Prime Minister becomes the de facto Head of State. President Rajapaksa has many promises to keep before he dissolves Parliament. He has to ameliorate the economic woes of the public, discipline his team and fight the war to the finish.

There is another reason for the president's decision against a premature parliamentary election. He is contesting elections exactly the way he wages war. On the war front, he started from Mavil Aru and then captured Muttur. Thereafter, he banished the LTTE from the other parts of the Eastern Province and concentrated on Mannar. Now he is laying siege to Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu. Similarly, on the political front, having won the LG polls in 2006, he first secured the Eastern Province. Then he bagged the NCP and Sabaragamuwa.

In waging war, the President has Prabhakaran's former military commander and some of his combatants on his side and in contesting elections, he is ably assisted by Ranil Wickremesinghe's former deputy and some his loyalists.

President Rajapaksa may not call a snap general election but he is likely to dissolve another PC or two prematurely, if the JVP, which contested on the UPFA ticket and gained representation last time, rocks the boat again, as it did in the NCP and Sabaragamuwa, a few months ago.

It is not elections and political muscle flexing that the country needs urgently. It needs proper economic management, solutions to the problems affecting people and, above all, an early end to the on-going war.