Editorial-March 3, 2014
Manape or the preferential vote is the mother of all battles during election times as is common knowledge. All candidates, save a few, blatantly flout election laws, throw money around and bust a gut, as they say, trying to obtain as many preferential votes as possible. The end, in their book, justifies the means. With only a few weeks to go for the Southern and Western Provincial Council polls, the pace of campaigning is hotting up, and all signs are that we will witness many more violent clashes.
Minister Dullas Alahapperuma has recently gone on record saying Manape has driven decent men and women away from politics and stood moneyed political dregs in good stead. True, when the people see the present-day wealthy scumbags going places, having entered politics, they think just like the proverbial camel which happened to open its bowels while moving downstream in a river; on seeing its own dung overtake it owing to rapids, the animal wondered, "How come what should come behind me is going ahead of me?"
Crooks in the fray with caches of black money for electioneering go so far as to shower expensive election bribes on voters such as mobile phones. We have seen politicians give away not only dry rations but also huge amounts of rotgut in return for votes. Decent candidates not prepared to stoop so low as to bribe electors to win elections are at a disadvantage. Dregs overtake them, as Minister Alahapperuma has pointed out.
But, what would happen, if the preferential vote was done away with in a hurry with the Proportional Representation (PR) system intact? Manape, in spite of all its flaws, serves one useful purpose; it enables people to indicate their preference for their favourite candidates after voting for parties of their choice. If that mechanism was abolished, they would have to vote blindly for parties, and crafty party leaders would be free to manipulate lists of candidates and ensure the election of their cronies at the expense of popular contestants not in their good books. How chaotic the situation will be in rainbow coalitions which have come to characterise Sri Lankan politics, in such an eventuality, is not difficult to imagine.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the preferential vote, we believe. It has become a big problem because the two main political parties, the SLFP and the UNP, continue to nominate unsavoury elements to contest elections. Manape has never been an issue for the JVP, as we keep pointing out in these columns, because its candidates put the party before self and, most of all, do not contest elections with a view to amassing wealth or enjoying perks. Therefore, there is no need for them to kill one another for preferential votes. Other parties are not without candidates with the same cachet. Former Western Provincial Council minister Udaya Gammanpila, currently in the PC polls fray, has had the courage to swim against the tide.
A UNP candidate has been arrested for allegedly masterminding an armed robbery in Negombo to raise funds for his PC polls campaign. A UPFA Pradeshiya Sabha Chairman has been nabbed while allegedly transporting cannabis in his official vehicle. The UNP and the SLFP are notorious for fielding anti-social elements at elections such as rapists, cattle rustlers, pickpockets, robbers and paedophiles and that may explain why political institutions including the national legislature have gone to the dogs.
This country is not short of good men and women to represent people and if the leaders of the two main parties desist from fielding rogues at elections and nominate only decent candidates Manape will cease to be a problem and this country will be a better place to live in.
