Sporting chances

Friday, 7 January 2011 00:26 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

POLITICS and sports usually do not go together. This is demonstrated by the local government elections clashing with the World Cup in February and requests for the entire election to be postponed. The matter is currently under discussion by the government and a compromise in the form on postponing only the local government elections where the matches are being held is under consideration.

When one considers these two events in order to evaluate which is more important the question of returns springs to mind. Elections are an important but costly result of democracy. Initial estimates put the local government election bill at Rs.1.8 billion and this is not counting the massive amounts of money that will be spent in advertising, rallies and other forms of awareness that the contestants will bombard the people with.

Generally the masses are unresponsive to smaller elections, commonly considered as rather ineffective in the greater scheme of things they are seen has bolstering corruption ridden institutions that give few returns to the people who elect them. The authority level of local governments is also limited and often results in overlapping parameters with provincial councils. On a national level it is hard to imagine an intense competition that will have the average man parked before his television till the wee hours of the morning awaiting the latest results with bated breath.

A stark contrast is the World Cup, which is finally arriving in Sri Lanka’s sun dappled shores for the first time in history. Even though several matches were to be played in the historic World Cup of 1996 that saw Sri Lanka raise its greatest cricketing victory, terrorism put a sorry end to much expectation. Fifteen years on the people are ready to take their revelry to the zenith of enjoyment. With more than a month to go the billboards are springing up and cricket fever is slowly spreading through the air. Young and old are brushing the cobwebs off their memories and after the tantalising chance given in the last World Cup they are ready for more.

Tourism is expected to boom during the World Cup and preparations are underway to introduce Pallekele and Suriyawewa in Hambantota as fresh destinations. Showcasing Sri Lanka as a country that has emerged from conflict into the brilliant vista of development and peace should be the main focus of everyone at this point, to use the publicity of the World Cup to dispel the misconceptions, miscommunications and misunderstandings about the country to the rest of the world. There can be no doubt that this would be a fabulous opportunity to demonstrate Sri Lanka’s commitment towards, good governance, law and order and transparency.

Elections are known to be violent and bloody in Sri Lanka. Even if the local government elections in certain areas are delayed there is no way to stop the negative reports of election violence hitting the headlines in the run up to the elections during the World Cup. The positive impression that Sri Lanka has longed to create and worked so hard to achieve would be lost in the pre-election cacophony making everyone losers. Therefore it would make sense for the government to postpone the entire election until after the world cup so that politics and sport can stay in their separate spheres.