The national riddle

By T. E., Kotte

Both major political parties, or at least the seniors on both sides, are more than willing to sell the country down the river. This time around they are swimming upriver, against the people. The political fencing and fence mending goes on unabated.

The country has a president. It needs a government. It is increasingly apparent that the people are now (finally) indifferent to party allegiance. Honest, capable candidates appear to be the priority.

The party leaders who do not field new, honest, credible candidates will have only themselves to blame.

No doubt the party leaders are between a rock and a hard place. The public know full well who the undesirables are. The leaders have really no choice but to nominate most of the usual suspects excluding perhaps only those already facing criminal charges. 

The fact that senior party members are interviewing prospective nominees destroys the credibility of the selection system. It raises the question whether they will restrict their choices to applicants who don’t stand a chance of winning against known associates. The spectre of a farce! In the unlikely event that the said parties transcend this obvious trend, they should publish a list, area wise, of the chosen new entrants, with a clear affidavit of a proper, fair vetting process. Field the old ones if they must but give the public a choice of enough new faces to replace all the old ones at their option. This would be impossible unless the vetting process of potential candidates is done absolutely objectively. This can be done best by the competent apolitical civic organisations, irrespective of party affiliation.

The parties themselves cannot be trusted to choose the calibre of candidates demanded by the public, when the selectors’ agenda differs from that of the public. The only certainties are the president and the people against both major parties who are only for themselves. Their collective rhetoric is confined to beating each other and nothing else.

The plot thickens. Political pundits are in deep debate about who will win with the re-entry of the former strongman into politics. The entire politburo of the Blues is frantically making a case to admit MR back into the fold. The argument essentially being it is the only way to beat the Greens.

The Greens meanwhile gleefully await a split in the Blues to improve their chances of winning. The President is held to ransom by the hierarchy in his (own) party, possibly under the pretext that he will be responsible for the Blues losing if he does not agree to nominate MR.

Both parties seem totally oblivious to the peoples’ sentiments, which are manifest in every public interview. They don’t care who wins. They want good, honest, new candidates. They demand party leaders offer them a choice and take the responsibility for their nominees; Period. The President can back the people or his party dissidents. Any choice but the people will destroy his credibility and trust with the people.

The people on the street do not understand the imagined quandary the President is trapped in! The general consensus seems quite simple and quite contrary to both parties’ beliefs. 

The people believe the Blues will lose if the president accommodates the Blue dissidents’ pressure. They believe the Greens will win if this happens. They believe the Blues will win if the President ignores the dissidents and goes with new faces. The president himself was a ‘cat in a sack’ voted in on trust. The people will vote equally blindly for people he nominates and vouches for. The people are now his party. He has no other.

The Greens came in tentatively by default. Their only hope of regaining power, again by default, is only if the President gives in to the dissidents he has no control of. The only way he can get rid of the dissidents and win for his party becomes obvious. This writer cannot believe the President does not know this. Or does he?