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| Sunday, 11 April 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Life with William... William goes to vote by Carol Aloysius Long before election day was announced William, my Man Friday was already gearing up for the D-day.
Seasoned voter that he is, it is not surprising that William has a fund of interesting anecdotes about his voting experiences, especially during his salad days, which he constantly repeats to me. Like the time when at the age of 24, he got into a fight with a neighbour, a staunch Leftist who had tried to brain wash him into voting for the party, during the short walk to the polling booth. Ardent UNPer that he was then, William naturally retaliated by punching him on his face, while his neighbour in return threw him a hard shot on his jaw. By the time the two arrived at the polling booth, a nearby school, they were both bruised and battered but still going at each other until a cop manning the booth had to literally tear them apart! He also recalled one election day when he had scooted out of the hospital where he was laid up with a chest complaint, to cast his vote. He had stealthily discarded his hospital clothes for the clothes he arrived in, and crept out of the hospital making his way to the polling booth which for his luck was nearby. "Honda velavata mava kavuruth dakke naha. Mama ispirithalata apahu daval ava", he boasted to me, chuckling at the memory of how the nurse to whom he confessed the truth when she had asked him where he had vanished for so long, had, instead of scolding him told him he had done the right thing!. A former harbour worker, William still has vivid memories of election related experiences at the port while he was working there as a labourer. He remembers how he took part in a two month strike by the harbour Dock Union which he said was headed by Philip Gunewardene."That was in the forties when we were still under Colonial rule. We were fighting for our rights (api satan kare ape ayithivasikam valata) he told me. Since almost all the harbour workers were members of the union, work came to a standstill at the port as the workers assembled every morning at the office of the Gunewardene brothers at Norris road. "We stayed the whole day there, for two months. Mr Gunewardene gave us our meals and looked after us well", he recalls. The outcome of the strike was that the workers got what they wanted -an eight hour working shift, an annual bonus and better pay. William also recalls the time Ceylon's first Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake visited the harbour. "That was a red letter day in my life", he says. Shortly after his visit William pledged his allegiance to the UNP. Over the years however he says he has constantly changed his mind about the party for whom he voted. "I only vote for the party I believe will bring down the cost of living which has sky rocketed", he says. Disillusioned by the outcome of those by-gone elections, he was wavering between casting his vote for the SJPP (all women's party) and the JHU the two latest entrants into the political arena when he set out to the polling booth last Friday. He refused to tell me for which party he had finally cast his vote. Ever an optimist, he now dreams of that magical day when he has saved up enough money of his own to build a little cottage at his home town Avisawella. "Then I shall be able to give up working and discuss politics( his favourite subject) all day long with my friends", he tells me. When I reprimand him for spending most of his free time airing his political views with his friends at the nearby Kopi Kade, he would invariably reply, "Nona, no one can stop me airing my political views because politics is in my blood. Since I cannot contest the Avisaweella seat as I don't have the money, I can only advise my friends on making the right choice every time an election is held in this country. How else can I do that except by discussing the political situation with them?" Put in my place, I can only say "Carry on William". |
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A veteran at the game , he never fails to tell me that since he cast
his first vote forty seven years ago at the age of 21, he has never missed
voting at every election the country has had ever since;Not even when he
was getting married. "Mama kasada bande election davasaka. Habai mama
issela mage chandaya dala thamai kachcheriyata giye", he tells me.
