Our democracy is messy, incompetent and full of idiots, but it’s better than an ‘efficient’ dictatorship.
by Indi Samarajiva
If someone comes to my house and throws chilli powder and breaks furniture I won’t invite them back again. Unless they’re my children, in which case it’s somewhat normal.
This is literally what the SLPP has done in our house (Parliament). Why would we ever vote for them again?
The October Coup was just last October. In that abortive coup, the SLPP tried to bribe and physically beat our democracy into submission until they lost in court. High crimes, of course, go unpunished so now they’re running for office again. This was all, of course, unnecessary. They could have waited for the legitimate elections and probably walked in, but they had to try to seize power and break everything.
This time they are running — of all things — an American for President, with a paper trail of dodgy documents and fraud behind him. The SLPP can’t even do something basic without ending up in court. They just do not care about laws or rules at only — only power. They are not players within our democracy. They’re a threat to democracy itself.
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This is not a good party. Even the real leader of the party lied about having ever joined it. It literally has no connection to facts, and especially not laws. The whole thing is just a placeholder for a family that wants to stay out of jail and resume looting, and the people who applaud them for doing this efficiently.
People have forgotten, but to me the coup was a complete disqualification. It was an illegal attack on our institutions, our democracy, our economy and ultimately our national security. Like the JVP after the insurrections or the UNP after the 83 riots, the SLPP should remain toxic for a generation (the UNP got away with it).
What happened in October wasn’t part of the usual power struggles in a democracy. It was an attack on the country itself. After October, we basically didn’t have a functioning government. I blame everyone for this, but the SLPP ultimately set this timeline in motion.
Without a functioning government, we didn’t have functioning national security. Without that we were preventable hit by terrorists on Easter and hundreds of innocent people died. And the SLPP tried to benefit from this, by sowing more violence and dividing the country. They riled up hatred against innocent Muslims and supported riots, deeply damaging Sri Lanka.
Again, these are not usual political actions. These are not politically differences. These are attacks on a country to divide it and gain power. The SLPP will literally torch anything to get power — Parliament, security, minorities.
They talk about technocracy and disciplined society, but they mean this only in a fascist sense. They want to destroy institutions and liberalism and replace it with a dictatorial society and economy, which always turns into a kleptocracy (a den of thieves). They have no regard for laws and regard political violence as legitimate.
Even now they’re arguing that the President becomes King in between governments, able to sign citizenship papers, give or take the land, declare war, issue drivers licenses — literally every executive function. They do this not as a different interpretation of the law but as a complete disregard of it. They just want their guy to run. They don’t care about laws, or institutions, or the hard-won democracy Sri Lanka has preserved through terrible times.
But I do.
Our democracy is messy, incompetent and full of idiots, but it’s better than an ‘efficient’ dictatorship. Efficient at what? Shredding freedoms and enriching the people at the top? I don’t want to live in a country where laws don’t matter and everyone is, ultimately, under the boot.
That’s why I’ll never vote for the SLPP.
They can fuck right off and come back in a generation, like the JVP, and play the democracy game like everyone else. Right now they’re trying to flip the whole board over and we shouldn’t let them. I don’t know who I’m voting for yet, but it’s definitely not these guys.
Here they are occupying the Speaker’s chair in Parliament, after attacking MPs and the police and our very democracy. And laughing about it. These guys literally came to our house, broke everything and made old Uncle Karu hide under a chair. There’s no way we should give them the keys.
The writer is the Founder of YAMU and Kottu. Read more articles by Indi at https://medium.com/@indica
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