February 17, 2009 at 5:35 pm (General, Patriots, Personal, Political, War)
Tags: Election, Media, Opposition, Parliament, Patriots, Pessimist, President
It can be a ploy to push his political opponents into a slow death; it can be a way of keeping the winning momentum long enough until the next national level election; it can be a strategy to gradually establish his own men within the ranks; or it can be a strange phobia of some alien force that could elect the opposition in to the power. But to me, being an absolute pessimist, this is an absolutely pessimistic approach in the political ball game.
With the powers of Executive Presidency and the legislature under his belt, with the backing of all forms of media, either by default or by force, being at the peak of popularity with the military victories, with an opposition which is as weak as one could ever be, I can’t think of any other way to describe the tactics of the President of holding Provincial Council elections one by one or two by two.
Despite political differences, we all have to agree that holding elections like this is a huge waste of money, time and resources. It was apparent that the Elections Commissioner himself was not too happy about it. However, these are not issues for the people who run the country or our patriotic masses who are overwhelmed by the thrill of military advances. So much so they are pumped up with patriotism, there’s no way the opposition could win even a single Pradeshiya Sabha at this stage, even if they take a 180 degree turn in their policies or even if the God is appointed as their leader.
The President, who is said to have risen from within the masses, should know this situation better than anyone else. But it seems like he is hit with some strange sense of horror. This is like Ricky Ponting shaking in fear of getting hammered by Zimbabwe. So the one and only Sri Rohana Janaranjana President, the hero of millions of heavy hearts, opts to hold these useless regional elections two by two so that he could use his powers and the state machinery to the fullest extent to win them. I wonder if this is being pessimistic or being stupid because it’s not someone’s personal wealth that go on waste but the public funds which are there for the well being of everyone.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he decides tomorrow to dissolve local government bodies two by two and hold elections. This will enable the opposition leader to score a century of “election losses” and more chances for our patriotic masses to show their gratitude to the security forces.
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February 8, 2009 at 10:35 am (General, International, Music, Personal)
Tags: Beer, Canberra, Culture, Dance, Food, Multicultural Festival
Yesterday was the Food and Dance day of the annual Multicultural Festival in the Aussie capital. Thousands of people gather in the City Walk on this day to taste delicious food from all around the world and enjoy different types of music and dance. Stalls from many countries are in place all over the City Walk and most of them are intended to raise funds for the well being of their own community in Australia.
The Stall from the US had an actual size cut out of their newly sworn in President and they invite people to pose with it. Then they take down your email address against the photo ID and the ‘precious’ picture with Barak Obama will be sent to that address free of charge.
Stalls from Middle-East countries were offering Dates to the visitors along with some sweets. The Polish stall had the best beer I have ever tasted. I can’t remember the name but it tasted so good and perfectly matched the hottest day of the year so far. The temperature under the shade was around 40 Celsius; just imagine how it would have been in direct sun light. A drunken Aussie I randomly met told me that it’s the best day in the year for him because there are so many varieties of food and drinks on the offer. It seemed like the extreme hot weather was not bothering him after few beers.
Funnily enough, most number of food stalls by a single country was from Ethiopia. They had at least 3 food stalls and they had their own brand of beer as well. Their food didn’t look good to me. But it looked as if these stalls were attractive to many of the visitors. After going around few times, we finally settled in to some Hungarian and Greek dishes. To tell you the truth, they were not tasty.
The Sri Lankan stall offered some good food as well. They had hoppers, wadey, cutlets and of course some rice and curry. The young girl who greeted us in to the stall didn’t understand what I was saying when I asked for two egg hoppers in Sinhala. We both were embarrassed and another lady who seemed like her mother came to the rescue. Finally I managed to taste an egg hopper after about 4 months.
It was great fun in the end and little Seth enjoyed the music quite a lot. There was a live radio broadcast from the venue and they played some Sri Lankan stuff as well. While we were there, they played some baila hits and ‘lunu dehi’ by Gypsies. The festival goes on through out this week and it surely is a fantastic concept. It’s lovely to see people respect and enjoy different cultures.
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February 2, 2009 at 7:30 am (General, Personal, Political, Religious, War)
Tags: American, Editors, Election, Extremists, Freedom, Fundamentalists, government, Media, Mullaitivu, PR Skills, President, Terrorists, Tigers, War
With the recapture of Mullaitivu, which was supposed to be the main military base of the tiger terrorists, the age old conflict in Sri Lanka has entered a new phase. As the celebrations go on, people have started labeling the commander-in-chief as the best ever to lead the country in the post-independence era. They are at their own right to think so. In my opinion, we are yet to see the consequences of the massive expenditure on war, handling of the economy and social matters. At a time where the strongest economies in the world crumble, we’ll have to wait and see how we can survive with such a massive expenditure on a war.
Anyway there’s one good attribute of the head of the state that should be applauded despite political differences. His PR skills are second to none. I don’t think there’s been and there’d be a single political leader to beat him in that aspect. He gets along very well with every Tom, Dick and Harry. This was apparent when he came in to agreements with some 25 odd political parties ahead of the Presidential Election. These parties included those who cannot win a single seat even in a Pradeshiya Sabha and they had contradicting policies and political views. It was quite obvious that he was not going to respect those pacts once he is elected to the office and some of the conditions were not practical on this earth. But somehow he managed to get all those blokes backing him and the rest is history.
So good his PR skills are he now runs a government which consists of members from virtually every party that contested the last General Election. Some of those members have absolutely contradictory policies and beliefs but they still hang on with him. Some of them swore by their mothers in political stages of his inability to run the country but now they are in meek silence under his wings and enjoying their perks. While a majority of his cabinet still consumes a good amount of alcohol, he managed to please his supportive bunch of monks by introducing a policy to put a ‘full-stop’ to alcohol. We all know it’s only a political gimmick and the ‘full-stop’ is actually a ‘comma’ in practice, but those monks are still behind him around the clock.
He has some well qualified economists running the top financial institutes and they all know the game they play with numbers and statistics. They are well aware of what it takes to run Mihin Air and the blunder with the proposed airport in south. They know the risk of getting so much foreign and commercial debt at high interest rates. They know where we stand in the current economic down turn but they never say a thing about it because the man at the helm is so good in his PR skills.
Newspaper editors monthly visit him over the breakfast and even when fellow journalists are tortured, threatened and finally get killed; they don’t say a thing in front of him. These editors know who can freely travel in highly secured capital carrying firearms and wearing masks. They know how valuable and talented those journalists who have fled the country fearing for their lives are. They know for sure that so-called ‘investigations’ are not going to reveal anything about these incidents. Yet, they don’t miss the monthly royal meal, because it’s so nice to meet and talk with him.
General public thinks he is the most patriotic leader ever and they treat his brothers the same way. They’ve already shrugged off the infamous Helping Hambanthota scandal and never question why his brothers once fled to USA and still are American citizens while claiming to be in so much of love with this country. Poor soldiers who risk their lives in this war know where their top brasses will end up once the war is over. They know the whereabouts of his son who is said to be serving in armed forces while similar ranks are sweating behind enemy lines. But they never say a word about it, because one single smile or word from the man makes them forget even their hunger. So why bother about citizenships, commission percentages and whereabouts?
With so powerful and sophisticated PR skills, he should be able give a permanent solution to this conflict too. At the moment he’s on the easy but costly and destructive path of war which is not the solution for this problem which has roots spread deep down. If he is ready to figure out the depth of the problem and realize the social, economic and political factors of it, he should be able to come up with a solution. It surely is not going to please the extremists and fundamentalists who are flocked around him but if he uses his PR skills to the maximum, he’d be able to overcome those obstacles. I don’t think any other leader would be able to deal with these extremists as smart as he does.
Whether the dog will wag the tail or the tail will wag the dog is what we have to look out for in the near future. As of now, latter seem to be the case.
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