Towards A Sovereign, Independent, Banana Republic

"We are already on the roll for the parliamentary election. Sarath Fonseka is being ground to dust lest there be any chance of him rising up from the disputed ballots. He is publicly accused of an attempted coup and some of his close associates in the army are in hot water. The UNP and the JVP are licking their wounds."
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By Gamini Weerakoon

(February 07, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Readers of this column should pardon us for thumping ourselves vigorously on our backs. They will recall that in many recent columns of Serendipity we regularly went back to two quotations of Al Capone, the Chicago gangster who specialised in many things including vote rigging during those prohibition days. One was: ‘Vote early vote often’. The other was: ‘It’s not the voting that matters but the counting’.

The second quotation you will admit was spot on. That’s what the hullabaloo now on is all about with the common opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka claiming that the presidential election was rigged while President Rajapaksa says he predicted his stupendous majority. At the centre of this hullabaloo or ho-ha, as we Sri Lankans call it, is that rather timid and innocent looking character, the Commissioner of Elections, Dayananda Dissanayake. But whatever way we may view Dissanayake, he deserves an Oscar for the sterling performances he had given in recent times.

Oscar winning performance

Two weeks before the presidential election, the Commissioner at a conference where he met representatives of political parties, officials involved in the election as well as the press announced that he was calling off these regular conferences, because it was a ‘waste of time’. Dissanayake declared that it was not possible for him to hold a free and fair election for many reasons that included: Police and public servants not carrying out his orders; state resources being misused and even ministry secretaries openly flouting the law.

He had withdrawn the competent authority appointed by him to monitor state owned media. His motive was to ensure impartial coverage of the elections but even those media commissars who agreed to follow his rulings were ignoring his appointee’s directions.

Final results

Dissanayake before the election also announced that declaration of the final results would not be telecast live as on previous occasions but only a pre-recorded version would be telecast and only an edited, pre-recorded version was broadcast. This gave rise to much speculation and the reason for this deviation from the regular procedure has not yet been explained.

The second Dissanayake performance was his announcement of the results. An apparently exhausted and exasperated Commissioner made several statements the likes of which had not been made before on such occasions.

He said:

* Many state institutions operated in a manner not befitting of state organisations. Some blamed him saying that his task was only to ensure that the counting was done right. But under the circumstances he faced, I could not even ensure the safety of one ballot box. I did my duties during these times (election day) under great duress and mental agony.

* The situation had reached a dangerous level that was beyond him. He was advanced in years and had served in that capacity for eight long years. So he only asked that he be released from this thankless duty. It is impossible for him to work in peace under the circumstances.

* Regional leaders had harassed his team in several areas such as Puttalam, Anuradhapura and Matale Districts. They even disturbed the counting centres. The situation reached uncontrollable levels of verbal abuse directed at presiding officers and assistant elections commissioners.

* He had been accused of favouring one party in the process of carrying on his duties. It was no longer possible to carry on his duties under such indignities and insults. He was not able to do so physically and psychologically.

Act No: 3

Dissanayake’s third Oscar winning performance came one week later (February 3) when he appeared fresh as a daisy, fighting fit and snapping at journalists at a press conference quite in contrast to the moaning and groaning Commissioner who had vowed that he would carry on only a few days after the election and call it a day. The rejuvenated Dissanayake said that he stood by the results announced and would take up the challenge with anyone trying to disprove them.

The results were computed by the School of Computing of the Colombo University which had computed election results since 1981. He brushed off queries about his previous statements about his inability to ensure the safety of even a single ballot box by saying that this statement was made in reply to a question by a journalist and that it had been distorted in the TV recording. About opposition representatives being chased out of counting centres, he said that all such incidents happened outside the centres and not within them.

His mental agonies, physical and psychological traumas all seem gone and now he would devote himself to conduct the parliamentary elections, he declared.

Catch 22 Situation

Whether he would finally win even a Sri Lankan Oscar is to be seen. It would be recalled that when he did swear in Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005, he publicly requested Rajapaksa that he be permitted to retire soon after from his post. A Supreme Court ruling that he cannot be permitted to retire until an independent Elections Commission is appointed under the 17th Amendment was the obstacle to Dissanayake seeking retirement bliss.

But Rajapaksa for four years did nothing about the 17th Amendment and so Dissanayake remains.

Dissanayake is in what is called a Catch 22 situation. In the acclaimed book Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, an American bombardier fighting in World War II had completed his tour of duty having flown the required number of combat missions but his commanding officer keeps upping the number of missions required for him to quit. The one possible way out is to plead insanity and the unit’s medical doctor says so. It is insanity to keep flying those missions but if the pilot wants to end those insane missions, it proves that he is not insane but is sane. Therefore the doctor says that if an application is made pleading insanity, he cannot certify that pilot is insane!

Dissanayake may be placed in a Catch 22 Situation but so is the whole country! Candidates and their voters cannot be deprived of their right to elect their president or other legislators. He cannot retire unless the 17th Amendment is enacted and Rajapaksa so far has shown no inclination to do so. So Dissanayake remains and will conduct the parliamentary election on election laws most of which he admits he was unable to implement! We are fast reaching the status of a Sovereign, Independent, Banana Republic.

We are already on the roll for the parliamentary election. Sarath Fonseka is being ground to dust lest there be any chance of him rising up from the disputed ballots. He is publicly accused of an attempted coup and some of his close associates in the army are in hot water. The UNP and the JVP are licking their wounds. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of voters, in the north and east are without identity cards that would enable them to vote. And the north and east have already indicated which way they will vote.

Meanwhile, the bands are playing, soldiers are marching to tunes of “jaya—way, jaya—way……’ Most journalists are under their beds.