June 21, 2012
By Laksiri Fernando -
Dr. Laksiri Fernando
Three major evils of the present ‘degenerated democratic system’ inSri Lankacan be identified as violence, corruption and communalism. While these three ills are not of recent origin, they are also not the only ones that have affected the political system negatively. It was the Donoughmore Commission (1929) that first identified ‘communalism as a cancer in the body politic.’ That time communalism was not violent. But since then it has not only become violent, but violence has also spread into other areas of political and social life. The most harmful for democracy is the violence used to acquire and retain political power both at the electoral and the national levels.
The motive behind power or position for most politicians today seems to be to acquire wealth but not to serve the people unlike in the olden days. At least wealth acquisition has become an integral part of politics. This is happening through blatant corruption. If you compare the assets of politicians before and after politics, it would become abundantly clear how much wealth that they have acquired through politics. The present obligatory declaration of assets to Parliament is not sufficient for this assessment; even that is not properly compiled with by many of the MPs or Ministers. This is what has denigrated the democratic system.
Instead of the election or representative aspect of democracy, cutthroat contest or winning dimensions have become predominant. The elected ‘representatives’ believe that they win elections not because of the ordinary voters; it is attributed to their own strength or merit. The winner gets all credit. The accountability thus has become a major casualty. This is partly because of the present electoral system with aggressive preferential voting competition. But that is not the whole story. The degeneration of democratic values, expensive election campaigns and the nexus between power and wealth are some of the other reasons. No one would say that politicians should be paupers. No one would object to the wealthy taking to politics. But, what is objectionable and detrimental to democracy is the use of political power as well as influence to acquire wealth through corrupt means.
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