Are We Ready For Change?
By Godwin Constantine –August 21, 2015
Dr Godwin Constantine
This is a great moment for Tamils, for Singhalese, for Muslims. This is a great moment for the country. Ultimately there is a feeling of relief, a hope that human dignity and democracy will be restored in this country.
The 2015 parliamentary elections were significant in many ways for Sri Lanka. Notably it is a watershed election where people from both sides of the ethnic divide have decisively rejected extremism. In the North, the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) which campaigned with an extreme Tamil nationalist stand, challenging the moderate Tamil National Alliance was unable to secure a single seat. In the South, the Mahinda lead UPFA campaign capitalized on communal hate politics and fear—such as fears of the re-emergence of the LTTE under the UNP government—but failed to maintain even the support they obtained in the Presidential election. More importantly the controversial Bodu Bala Sena, contesting the polls as Bodu Jana Peramuna, failed to win a single seat.
If the Sri Lankan general public is saying, “enough is enough; let’s move away from communal politics and get along with life,” will the present government listen to the faint voices of its people? If one considers the events that led up to the Presidential elections and its aftermath, and up to the parliamentary elections, we could sense that a democratic atmosphere, where people’s voices would be taken into account, was setting in. Of course there were hiccups in ‘yahapalanaya,’ with corrupt politicians raising their ugly heads once in a way, and wrong people being appointed for important positions. Nevertheless, President Mithripala’s efforts to put principles before politics need to be commended.