For lack of an alternative

7 October 2013 03:33 am - 0 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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The results of the election of members for the Northern Provincial Council are still a hot topic of conversation/debate among the people.  The debate on the subject centres around the question whether or not the people of the Northern Province expressed an opinion in favour of separation by giving a tremendous mandate to the conglomeration of racists/Tamil supremacists called the Tamil National Alliance.

It is worthwhile, nay essential, to realise in this context that the voter at an election such as the election for the Northern Provincial Council does not merely  cast his vote for the party, the policies of which he endorses.  Indeed the number of voters at any election who actually read the manifestos published by the contesting parties is minute. The fact that members of one political party or coalition of political parties has secured the vast majority of votes does not, in any way, mean or indicate that the people have endorsed every policy propounded by them or approved of every act committed by them.

It must be remembered and remembered well that at any election the voter does not simply vote for the party/candidate he/she selects but votes for the better or the less bad of the alternatives available before him/her or for more mundane reasons such as friendship or kinship or because a particular party or candidate has helped him in some matter or done him/her a favour. Thus, the victory of one set of candidates proposed by one party over those proposed by another does not connote an approval of the various statements made by and/or the policies espoused by the victors. It only means that while some voters may have voted because they approved of such deeds or such policies there would necessarily be others who have voted for them because they ‘prefer’ that a lot of persons to the alternative/s before them.  Such preference could be for good reason, bad reason or no reason.

" Similarly the People of the North also had no alternative. They had either to vote for a candidate proposed by the so called Tamil National Alliance which and which alone has been organised and active in politics in the Northern Province over the last so many years, or for the EPDP [Thinly disguised as the UPFA] led by Douglas Devananda who has held Cabinet office in every government of this country from the time of Chandrika Kumarathunga "

This is not so only in respect of the North.  It is also so with regard to the other parts of the country too.  Thus, the repeated victories of Rajapaksa and the coalition of the personally ambitious he leads known as the UPFA do not connote approval signified by the people for the various antics of the Government: it does not signify approval of the corruption that exists within the ranks of the Government; or for the waste and/or the extravagant expenditure of public funds indulged in by them.  It does not signify an approval of the nepotism and/or cronyism that is practised and had been practiced for several years by them; and it does not in any way signify approval of the Government’s ‘blow hot ; blow cold’ policy with regard to the Western countries and others who have been opposed/ hostile  to us throughout.
The question then naturally arises as to why the people voted for Rajapaksa and the members of the UPFA in such large numbers.  The answer to this question lies in the fact that the alternatives before the people were far worse.

What are these alternatives?  There are the United National Party with its world record of successive defeats and `jockeying’ for `position’ within its ranks; General (retired) Sarath Fonseka who was so hungry for power that he even sought to become President with the support of parties with such  irreconcilable differences as the TNA, the JVP. The SLMC and the UNP, and his newly formed party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna which twice indulged in an orgy of violence spilling the blood of innocent people throughout the length and breadth of this country, and still commemorates those murderers among its members, many of whom were rightly killed by the Government in power, calling them “Il Maha Viruwo”.

Similarly the People of the North also had no alternative.  They had either to vote for a candidate proposed by the so called Tamil National Alliance which and which alone has been organised and active in politics in the Northern Province over the last so many years, or for the EPDP [Thinly disguised as the UPFA] led by Douglas Devananda who has held Cabinet office in every government of this country from the time of Chandrika Kumarathunga.
In my view, just as much as one cannot blame the voters of the South for voting for Mahinda Rajapaksa and the UPFA so also can the people of the North not be blamed for casting their votes for the candidates proposed by the Tamil National Alliance.

There is one other matter that deserves attention in this regard and that is the fact that none of the major parties in the fray saw fit to criticize and/or attack the Tamil National Alliance for its conduct against the interests of the Tamil People in the recent past. The reason for this is presumably that both Rajapaksa and the UPFA and those parties opposed to him such as the moribund UNP hope against hope that they could, by such deafening silence about the villainy of the TNA and its constituent

" While all these matters are indisputably true, we the voters of the South do not, in my view, have any option but to keep supporting Mahinda Rajapaksa and his coalition of frauds and `job-hunters’ not because they are good but purely because of the lack of an alternative in the same way that the people of the North have no option but to vote for the TNA for the lack of an alternative "

members secure the support of the TNA for themselves at future elections.  Thus, the people of this country were not informed, reminded or kept informed of the very significant facts that during the darkest hour of the Tamils of the North when they were under the jackboot of the LTTE and their children were being kidnapped on a daily basis, and others being murdered, robbed and having their money extorted from them by the LTTE, the TNA and its members supported their tormentors, the LTTE and did nothing to save those poor Tamils whom they claimed to represent. Further, though the TNA not only failed to at least express a word of gratitude for the members of the country’s Armed Forces  who sacrificed life and limb to save them from that torment; but, on the contrary demanded the removal of those saviours of the Tamil People from the North. These vitally important matters were not highlighted in the course of the campaign by any major party. In the same way they did not point out to the people that while the TNA continuously attacked the appointment of a retired military officer Major General (Retd) Chandrasiri as Governor they were the very people who had supported another retired Military Officer General (Retd.) Sarath Fonseka for the Executive Presidency of this country in 2010.
This is not all, no major party highlighted the outrageous facts that while India was encouraging and giving support to the Indian poachers in the guise of fishermen, who were robbing the

Sri Lankan Tamil fishermen of the North of their catch hence their livelihood, the Tamil National Alliance, the members of which had received and no doubt hope to receive the hospitality of the Indian Government in the future too, did not, and does not support the Tamil fishermen of the North against their Indian counterparts and/or attack and/or utter one word against the Indian Government for supporting those poachers.

The litany of transgressions of the peoples’ rights by the Tamil National Alliance does not end there.  It is too long to set out in full.
Worst of all, these so called `responsible’ `major’ parties failed entirely to expose the contemptible hypocrisy of the Tamil National Alliance in that, for example, while they spare no efforts to make loud and continuous noises about the right to self determination of the Tamil People, they  are the very people, indeed the only people who are today contesting elections who strived hard to and did deprive those very Tamil People  of their right of self determination.  Thus, for example, the Tamil National

" Thus, the repeated victories of Rajapaksa and the coalition of the personally ambitious he leads known as the UPFA do not connote approval signified by the people for the various antics of the Government: it does not signify approval of the corruption that exists within the ranks of the Government; or for the waste and/or the extravagant expenditure of public funds indulged in by them "

Alliance actually insulted the Tamil People no end and supported to the hilt the deprivation of their right to self-determination. by saying repeatedly that the LTTE were their `sole representatives’ and hence  that those Tamil People had no right to determine who should represent them; and stood idly by while the LTTE, forcibly deprived the People of the North of their right to elect whom they wished at the general elections of 2004 and indeed prevented even that veteran Tamil politician Ananda Sangaree from voting;

The Tamil National Alliance did not do any of these things for nothing.  The fact that they gained and gained in plenty materially for their villainy is borne out by the facts that they secured seats in Parliament with the support of the LTTE and enjoyed the perquisites and privileges that go with membership of that now disreputable body of persons.  By that support for the LTTE members of the TNA got several gratis trips abroad so that those who had not earlier travelled even from Jaffna to Chavakachcheri now travel from Colombo to London, to New York, to Geneva, to Stockholm, Oslo etc as frequently as our Minister of External Affairs travels to foreign countries at our expense.

These are matters that those parties that were, at least in theory opposed to the TNA should necessarily have brought to the notice of the people but they refrained from doing so because of their greed for office and the benefits both lawful  and unlawful (more unlawful than lawful) that they could gain therefrom.
While all these matters are indisputably true, we the voters of the South do not, in my view, have any option but to keep supporting Mahinda Rajapaksa and his coalition of frauds and `job-hunters’  not because they are good but purely because of  the lack of an alternative in the same way that the people of the North have no option but to vote for the TNA for the lack of an alternative

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For lack of an alternative

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