Thoughts from London

Over here some want a third term too
Okay, so you could not care less who wins this week's British elections. No surprise there. Whether Tony Blair's new Labour romps home again or Michael Howard's Conservatives kick "Teflon Tony" in the shins or other sensitive parts of the anatomy, it will bring no solace to the average Sri Lankan. The prices of their wambottu and pathola will not come down. As for their cooking gas, Shell will rather see them in hell before knocking a few bucks off a cylinder.

What with consumer prices rising faster than Sarath Amunugama could say Washington consensus, why should anybody in paradise worry about some silly old election where the most colourful epithet hurled up to now is to call the other fellow a liar or racist.

If that is the best the British can come up with after centuries of parliamentary politics then they need a few lessons from our part of the world or from Mr Mugabe who has a few choice things to say about Tony Blair that would make Michael Howard's few remaining hairs stand on end.

What on earth the London-based Commonwealth Secretariat does, the deities (and perhaps a couple of others) only know. It sends observers to monitor elections in Commonwealth countries and teach them about good governance and such nonsense. Nobody is interested in good governance not even those like the British who are quite adept at preaching about it.

If the British were interested in it they would not be in the mess they are right now over Iraq, concealing the advice of the Attorney General on the legality of the war, and forced to release it only a few days ago after some chap finally leaked it to the media.

What the Commonwealth Secretariat should do is teach politicians- budding not budded- how to "put hora votes" without being found out, unlike some Labour councillors in Birmingham who tampered with postal votes.

Given our historical experience, an election campaign in which candidates and their armed sidekicks don't shoot the daylights out of each other or, at least, throw a few stones or shout "ado hora" from a passing vehicle, hardly qualifies as an event of any import.

Even in the earliest days of representative politics, our election campaigns were conducted with a vibrancy and noise enough to wake the dead, making the British version as dull as the current weather here.

There are so many entertaining stories about our elections that one could never be sure whether they are apocryphal or not, given the Sri Lankan penchant to make them up as they go along.

One story goes that at the 1947 parliamentary elections, a southerner from a prominent family who lived in Colombo decided to contest his home-town constituency. His opponent was a local candidate who decided to appeal to the loyalty of the locals. So he hung huge banners prominently claiming "Uuth kupadiya, mamath kupadiya. Gamey kupadiyate chandey dapang (He is a cad, I'm a cad. Vote for the village cad).

Unfortunately such rustic raciness and general revelry have given way to the T-56 and the hand grenade not to mention some thuggery and intimidation thrown in to encourage voter participation. Anyway, our countrymen have enough problems at home to concern themselves with British hospitals how they should be run or what students should pay for their university education.

Caught between Velu P manning the northern corridor and the JVP brethren minding the south, there is hardly time for other forms of entertainment. Velu P's henchmen say they are getting pretty impatient and want the whale killers from Oslo to shove their harpoons deeper into the Banders family that claims to run the country-when they are in it, that is, and not roaming around elsewhere. Otherwise they threaten to go back to the business they know best and that, as we know, is not selling bananas.

Not to be outdone by their northern comrades- in- arms (and not small arms either) the sahodarayas of the JVP are spouting fire every other day or so threatening to do dire things themselves. The next time they will quit the coalition, they scream.

In the meantime, Somawansa Amarasinghe, the last man standing, after his former politburo colleagues who ravaged the country and savaged the people in the late eighties, went to meet their maker (Marx, Mao or whoever was the last ideological sage), swears undying fealty to the people's coalition.

He seems to be speaking for himself since his future might depend on it and not for all the Marx brothers. With Velu P breathing fire in the blue corner and the sahodarayas playing with fire in the red corner, our countrymen wake up each morning not knowing whether it is war or peace or even if there is a government of sorts.

While commiserating with our countrymen, they should not ignore these elections all together. After all Tony Blair is hoping to continue for a third term. Now do we know anybody else who would like to do the same? The problem is that Blair has to convince the voters that he deserves to go on.

He cannot change the constitution and for a good reason. They don't have one. The British were so busy collecting colonies and looting their wealth, they forgot to sit down to writing a constitution. Blair cannot turn to the judiciary for a helping hand. Some political arm-twisting might have made the Attorney-General decide, at the eleventh hour, that the war on Iraq was legal.

But that is as far as he could go. If he tried to influence the Supreme Court or cram it with cronies, a highly independent judiciary would peel him layer by layer like an onion. So with all those doors shut, Blair has to convince the voters. The pity of it all is that he could not meet up with President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who could have given him some really good tips on how to run elections and convince the people.

The President was apparently busy too, readying herself for daughter Yasodara's 25th birthday do. Blair and his minders could have got in touch with brother Anura Bandaranaike who, according to stories here, was also at the party. Actually Anura B was on his way to Nigeria to attend a three-day Commonwealth Tourism Ministers Meeting beginning April 27. But somehow he ended up in London one week ahead of the Commonwealth meeting which was in an entirely different continent.

As someone said later, instead of studying history in London Anura should have studied geography. Had he done that he would have found a shorter route to Nigeria. But that is surely unfair. As tourism minister he was due to meet some tour operators at dinner and also have talks with supporters of the party and I don't mean Yasodara's birthday bash.

What on earth is the use of being a president or minister if one cannot use taxpayers money and spend some time in London, now that spring is here. The UK has a parliamentary ombudsman to carefully scrutinise declarations of interest, expenses and other spending by ministers and parliamentarians. Maybe Sri Lanka should have an ombudsman too, but a genuine one with similar powers, not some party hack or passing crony.

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