Election feedback

By Dushy Ranetunge

(January 02, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Below are comments by citizens from various parts of the country, which are of interest.

A Traffic Police officer near the Benthara River ; “The law must be applied to all equally. We stopped a container and found it full of Billboards in support of the President. It is illegal, but we could not do anything. If the OIC had ordered us to seize it, he may have been transferred to Batticaloa or some other place.”

“There was huge placard of the President put up and overnight someone had put paint on the face of the President obliterating it. It was not nice as it is our President so we tried to remove it, but we failed as it was welded and securely fixed.”

A citizen who lives near Kalpitiya : “ The President has never come this way, but the other day they all descended on us. The IGP and his group who accompanied the President visited a local hotel and had meals free of charge. The SSP was observed, reprimanding a local OIC for allowing some posters in support of Fonseka to be put up. He said that the OIC may have to provide explanations.”

The Grandson of a famous Sinhalese author “I received a text from the President wishing us a happy new year. I wonder whose money he is spending texting everyone.”

A Station Master of the Sri Lanka Railway “They have built a palace somewhere in the South, and they are not allowing anyone to even go there to see it. The corruption is unbearable ”

A rural housewife in Kandy “ They are only allowing the Presidents voice to be heard and blocking other points of view. This is not democracy”

A leading criminal lawyer from Nedimala: “I am voting for the lesser evil. We owe gratitude to the President. He took on the world”.

A businessman in Colombo “Fonseka has no party, so his only party is the army and he will bring in his buddies from the army into the government and we will have another Pakistan here. He is also too close to the red brigade”

A Political observer “We have the two worst candidates as a choice”

A Jaffna Tamil; “ Mahinda has treated us so badly, no one else can treat as any worse, so I am voting for Sarath”

A Sri Lankan Diplomat (Political appointment) : “Even the Tamil journalist and the newspaper guys say that it was Fonseka who was responsible for that murder. Do you know that he had asked a female soldier to kill a mosquito and when she failed to do it, he had ordered her to kill a hundred mosquitoes and show him.”

A government official “The President wants charges against Kothalawala to be dropped”

A small shop owner in Thimbirigasyaya “They have withdrawn the army from Colombo and are deploying Police and STF. The government doesn?t trust the army”.

“We voted for him to save the country and now it’s a case of that paddy field is ours and this paddy field is also ours”

An academic from the University of Colombo (while packing her bags) “ I think Mahinda will win”

Another businessman “Our friends are now Libya, Iran and Burma. That says it all”