Election season
July 6, 2013, 7:26 pmFriday’s presidential proclamation of the Northern Provincial Council election and the premature dissolution of the Central and North Western Provincial Councils, though front-paged yesterday was certainly not breaking news in the sense that the country already knew that these elections were onna menna, if we may borrow the pithy Sinhala idiom. Despite the demands of an influential section of the ruling UPFA coalition, President Rajapaksa who had gone public more than once that the NPC election – a first for the Northern Province – would be held in September could obviously not back down especially in the context of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be hosted here in November as well as barely concealed Indian pressure. It looks like Rajapaksa whose party has won all the major elections held since his advent to power is not likely to pull off the NPC poll. That’s probably why he decided to dissolve the PCs in the North Western and Central Provinces so that he can demonstrate two wins against a single defeat (two thirds majority?) to those who might (wishfully) think that his grip on near absolute power is loosening. In any event having all three PC elections on a single day is an improvement on the previous practice of staggering them to enable the government to concentrate its campaigning firepower on one election at a time as has been its habit previously.
It is still an open question on whether the government will go ahead with changes to the 13th Amendment before the forthcoming election. The president has been as much under pressure on this score as on having an NPC election at all from his UPFA allies. Having placed most of his eggs on devising a consensus devolution formula in a Parliamentary Select Committee basket, he has to now contend with both the UNP and TNA most likely not participating in this process. That would mean that whatever consensus that emerges at the PSC will not have the nod of the most formidable opposition force (such as it is) in the country, the strongest of the Tamil parties and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress whose leader, Mr. Rauff Hakeem, has not been nominated to the PSC. His exclusion implies that the government is not hot on any position he might take. Whatever recommendations that are made will therefore be that much weaker and will not be easily presentable as a national consensus. While there have been reports that Minister Douglas Devananda is interested in being the UPFA’s chief minister of the NPC, these have not gelled into anything certain. While Devananda had been nursing the electorate for quite some time, whether he will throw his hat into the ring yet remains to be seen. Any decision must obviously be dependent on how he reads the mood of the electorate as well as the backing of the president. In any case the UPFA is expected to announce chief ministers only after the election and not before.
As in the case of the JVP which entered the political mainstream following its two attempts to topple the then governments by armed force, there have been speculative reports that some Tiger personalities who survived the war will possibly run under the UPFA banner at the NPC elections. Names such as Daya Master and Thamilini have been mentioned in this connection, whether accurately or not we do not know. Even Kumaran Pathmanathan or KP, once upon a time the LTTE’s chief arms procurer who was arrested in Malaysia and brought here, had been mentioned as a possible chief ministerial prospect. KP is still wanted in India in connection with the Rajiv Gandhi assassination so that seems unlikely. Many former LTTE brass such as Pillaiyan have held important political office as chief minister of the East under UPFA livery and Karuna is a senior vice-president of the SLFP! Although there are still references to the TNA as LTTE proxies, which the party was though willingly or with a gun at its head we do not know, the fact that the ruling party is considering some `rehabilitated’ LTTE personalities to run under its ticket at the forthcoming election seems to imply an admission that they can draw votes.
In any event the various permutations and combinations that will come into play in the NPC election will become clearer in the next few weeks. It is most likely that although there may be no changes to 13A before the election is concluded, issues that have already come up – whether it should be repealed or diluted – are very likely to be intensively debated not only in the North but also in the Central and North Western Provinces as the election campaigns gather steam. It would be interesting to see whether the voters themselves show any enthusiasm and how big or small the voter turnout will be. With Navi Pillay due in August, CHOGM in November and another meeting of UNHRC in Geneva coming up, some nimble footwork on the part of the government with regard to devolution will be required.
Emission testing
The clouds of black smoke emitted by many buses and lorries as well as other vehicles plying Sri Lanka roads would imply that there is no emission testing of vehicles in this country. But as vehicle owners know, you must go to one of the authorized testing centers, shell out thousand rupee ( plus or minus depending on whether you drive a car, bus or coach or ride a motorcycle) and get emission clearance before you can obtain your revenue licence. According to the annual report of Laugfs Gas PLC which we run in our business pages today, its subsidiary called Eco-Sri (Pvt.) Ltd. had done very nicely collecting revenue of Rs. 858 million doing emission tests. The report says that they have 70 permanent and semi-permanent testing centers and also operate 23 mobile units. The profit from this business after tax was an ``impressive’’ Rs. 407 million. The report said the company expected 3.2 million vehicles to be tested this year.
Laugfs, no doubt, has got a lucrative concession doing these tests. But why is it that our roads are still full of belching monsters? One possible reason that comes to mind is that if the authorities seriously stamp down on vehicle emissions, the country’s public transport and haulage fleets will be seriously compromised. Buses and lorries are the chief offenders on this score and that seems to be why the police are turning a blind eye to the black smoke belching monsters that are all too common. Whether they have been tested or not for noxious emissions, we do not know. What we do know is that ordinary mortals cannot get a revenue licence for their vehicles without that certificate.