A citizen’s clarion call to mass media, civil organisations and political parties

Saturday, 18 July 2015 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

At the outset, we as citizens having the country at heart hasten to congratulate all the civil organisations and social activists including the mass and social media for their current efforts towards selection of a decent and a professional set of parliamentarians at the forthcoming election.

It is really encouraging to see the print and electronic media presenting innovative programs to bolster this effort to forge ‘good governance’ starting from the next Parliament itself, without waiting for the passage of the 20th Amendment.

While these positive efforts are going on, we wish to make the following suggestions to buttress them.

1.PAFFREL to ensure that a hand bill carrying their set of ‘8 ethical criteria’ reach every household in the country well before the election. The mass media could certainly facilitate the achievement of this objective.

2. All contesting parties to ensure that their ‘party manifestos’ are received by every household well before the election.

3. All political parties to obtain a legally enforceable letter of under taking from their members to the effect that, if they decide to leave the party which they were voted for by the voting public, they will automatically forfeit their seat in Parliament. This letter should be signed before they take oaths in Parliament. We can foresee a spate of ‘crossovers’ immediately after the election making the entire election process, a meaningless, wasteful and a futile exercise in the eyes of the public.

4. Both major parties/alliances to vouch before the public that, when they form the new Cabinet, they will ensure that all contesting parties are proportionately represented in the Cabinet, paving the way for a truly sincere ‘People’s Govt.’ The concept of ‘National Govt.’ has to be implemented through a ‘cut and dry’ method (rather than paying lip service) in order to avoid unnecessary bargaining with other parties.

We are confident that if the aforesaid steps are implemented, the current efforts by the media and the civil organisations will bear fruit and the peace loving public can look forward to a prosperous country which can become a role-model for other countries.

Bernard Fernando,

Moratuwa.