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| Sunday, 20 November 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Time to deliver on promises made Light Refractions by Lucien Rajakarunanayake Elections are a serious thing no doubt, yet there's always a great deal of fun in the process too. Right now with the new Executive President chosen we have reached the end of the latest political fun time with universal franchise. Political fun over The fun began before the campaign in the UNP's long march ostensibly to get the elections moved to this year from the next, but in fact to promote the candidacy Ranil Wickremesinghe. While there was little of the serious in that march from Tangalle to Colombo, the highlight was how Ranil W. tried his hand at raban playing on the way. That's a first for any book of records of the antics of politicians to show the common touch they lack. While Ranil's raban playing efforts drew large publicity and some very fine "raban verses" on the subject, there was that other innovation in polls prediction the SMS poll. Neither scientific nor reliable in any way, with the path open for huge manipulation; SMS polling became popular, not the least because there was a huge jackpot for the person who gave the correct prediction. While the SMS poll was the brainchild of the private media, with the results always in favour of their favourite candidate, soon the State media too began to copy this folly showing more supporting its own favoured candidate. Although fun may have been had by those who participated in SMS polling, it was the biggest of follies in opinion polling or polls prediction to date. Victor Hettigoda, the "Siddhalepa" candidate, whose marketing slogan for his product is "The Doctor that should be in every home" took a huge leap promising to give every household a cow, to increase local milk production. This led to jokes about how flat dwellers could have a cow in their premises. Others saw this leading to more cattle slaughter, as the people who get the cows would not know what to do with it other than sell it for meat once its productive period was over. Laughed at though he was among those who believe that milk from cows that graze on the grasslands of New Zealand is better than local milk, Hettigoda's offer was a good example of native home-spun thinking to increase the production and consumption of fresh local milk. It's an example of how what some think as funny can produce good results too. Results Another record in this milky-way of campaign fun was mentioning of two brand names of milk powders in the "People's Agenda" of the Ranil Wickremesinghe. Never in the history of elections in Sri Lanka, and possibly other democracies too, have branded names of products been mentioned in polls manifestos. What was more interesting was that the candidate, running for the highest office in the land was endorsing two brands of milk powder from election platforms much as any sports star would endorse a brand of sausages or a refrigerator. May be, it is time for an Independent Commission on Ethics in Election Campaigning. With such importance given to imported milk powder, this is not the time to ask how much these two much promoted milk powder marketers put into the kitty of the UNP's polls campaign, to be sure of a subsidy on their milk for one whole year, and steadily erode demand for locally produced fresh and powdered milk. That's part of the fun games in politics. In another new approach to bringing down the cost of living, one saw the tiny sprat come into huge focus, with the promise of a fixed price for 500g of sprats. Mind you the fun is in that this subsidy is for imported dried sprats, because there is no way of controlling the price of fresh sprats in the market. Of course cynical economists questioned whether those who made this offer bothered to find out how much of dried sprats a person or family consumed in one year. Such economists are wet blankets trying to spoil the fun of the politicians and their promises. When it comes to symbolism in politics, this campaign saw the emergence of a powerful new symbol in the kurakkan shawl worn by Mahinda Rajapakse. Promises People soon identified this shawl with the man himself so much that suggestions were made that display of the shawl in public places should be banned, considering it an election symbol. These are the sour types in our society who did not see joy and excitement that the kurakkan shawl brought into politics. If the strict no fun approach of the Elections Commissioner proved that elections could be held without posters, banners and cut-outs, there was the new fun of dancing on the stage at political rallies, taken strictly out of the cheer-leader tradition in US football games. While all this was going on the media, especially the private media had their own fun leading to media mayhem both in news casting and advertising. The fun element of certain advertisements was taken away by their nauseating repetition. All that fun and nausea too, is now over. Its time to deliver on promises made. So let's wait for that part of the
fun to begin. There will be more to laugh at than we can imagine. |
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