Saturday, January 09, 2010

who to vote for? a guide

the main failing of a representative democracy like sri lanka is that voter cannot decide on each policy individually, one by one. we have to decide between individuals who make promises to act according to a package of policies.

(btw while the outcome of this election, a big victory for mahinda rajapaksa, was clear from the start, imo mere certainty's of outcome should not be a sufficient reason to favor it.)

i will come to individuals later, now we will look at,
how to evaluate a package of policies.

first we will have to ask, are the policies consistent with each other? in other words do they adhere to any ideology.

in sri lanka as in other democracies the electable candidates are not likely to be creatures of any ideology. there are few minor candidates who may have policies that are ideologically consistent. any vote for them will be wasted, except as an almost invisible protest. (btw bc in sl minor candidate ideologues are either marxists or racists, and there are no libertarians, i cannot make such an empty protest even if i wanted)

2 major candidates are ideologically inconsistent. however vaguely left of center mahinda rajapaksa is more coherent than all over the place sarath fonseka.

since a choice based on ideology is out of question, how are we to continue, esp given their preference for empty platitudes and slogans rather than policy specifics or implementation details.

to judge between such undefined policy collections, we have to focus; we have to concentrate on what we consider major policy decisions facing the country and drop all minor ones. then we have to make out from available material whether there are any material differences between the candidates about those.

what are the major policy issues?
national security and economy will be my answer. some would also add good governance/corruption. (so i will comment on that as well)

national security
we defeated murderous tamil tiger terrorists. that is a glorious national achievement (to which both candidates contributed significantly; one of course had greater responsibility by definition). that achievement should be defended in every way possible.

nobody should be allowed to roll it back. esp not by giving power to unrepentants who were willingly either racist pro terrorists and/or pro appeasement peaceniks (i.e. those who believed peace is worth any cost, even the cost of human rights, freedom, justice and democracy; they opposed defeating the tamil tiger terrorist pussies with violence if needs be, preferring instead to handover fellow sri lankans to terrorist oppression in appeasement). ppl with such attitudes at such a time proved that they are both morally pervert and unrealistic. by refusing to repent and renounce their former attitudes, and continuing to denigrate the national victory, they now prove they are incapable of learning and/or corrupt to the core .

now such ppl (unp leadership, tna, likes of mano ganeshan, peacenik ngos) are supporting sarath fonseka. why? bc he has agreed to their conditions, which while not explicit in rolling back the defeat of terrorists, will give means to these ppl to do exactly that. his willingness to accept of such conditional support coupled with his own irresponsible statements to media, only indicate his less than willing commitment to defend the great national achievement.

some might object, that mahinda rajapaksa too has a few such supporters. he has some such ppl, but in contrast to fonseka's, they after renouncing the attitudes referred to above, in most cases even helped in defeating the terrorists. nor will they be in a position to roll back the terrorist defeat in case of a mahinda victory since he is not working under conditions imposed by them.

i think on this issue, the voting decision is very clear for anyone who values freedom, human rights, democracy, and justice. sarath fonseka and his current supporters should not be allowed to achieve power.

economy
no recognizable policy by either candidate, beyond irresponsible spending sprees of gigantic proportions. needless to say, if carried out, such actions will lead to total collapse. thankfully they are impossible to carry out, so will not be implemented.

in any case, government's ability to influence economy is pretty limited, bc sri lankan are very good at ignoring government (from taxes to regulations) and getting away with it.

if there is a difference, it is one of degree. mahinda camp (confident of victory, in contrast to desperation in foseka camp) seems to be more restrained, knowing they will be held to account for not keeping to promises, come next election. one election promise will illustrate this. fonseka promises rs.10,000/= monthly salary increase to all public servants. mahinda so far has made a point of not following this with a counter bid, pointing out its unrealistic nature. of course he has upped or initiated other such 'promise bids'.

it goes without saying that as a libertarian, i am completely frustrated at this state of affairs; there is no candidate to stand for a pro market, less government, position. this is partly the fault of unp as i have explained before.

in all this, it must be remembered that sri lankan economy is doing well in spite politicians; growth is likely to be in 6%+ levels in next few years, inflation is at 25 year low, and stock market is at a record high.

anyway, there is not much of a difference when it comes to economy. mahinda has already shown that he hasn't/can't ruin it in spite his promises, while fonseka's similar promises probably won't be carried out either if he gets elected.

iow, fonseka has not shown why he should get the vote based on economic issues.

good governance and corruption
i don't think this is a major issue. but some ppl do try to make it an issue and it is the one that is most talked about by politicians and commentators, while imo most voters will decide based on above two issues.

anyway, i don't see a difference between the candidates on this issue. both are corrupt, both have corrupt supporters, both sides used/use government property and benefits for campaigning.

what could be more absurd than ppl like ravi karunanayake denouncing corruption (as he did in unp ass licker harsha de silva' program yesterday). lol.

while corrupt should be punished lawfully if possible, i seriously doubt individuals promising to eradicate corruption of others. at most there will be political show trials of opponents that go nowhere due to technicalities if the accused is no fool (such outcomes are a part of democracies, for show trials with convictions (and executions) go to china).

some supporter of fonseka talk of 'good governance' through implementation of 17th amendment. most voters would not know the difference between it and 13th. imo 17th is an undemocratic, unworkable, loophole ridden, bureaucratic, money wasting monstrosity, and cannot and should not be implemented. (i really should write a post about it, but 17th is so cloud cookooish i can't motivate myself). in any case i doubt unp, jvp, tna, and others, who were each in part responsible for failure to implement it at various times, will agree to it when in power and handover power to unelected commissions of fractious nominees.

only way to achieve good governance and less corruption is to reduce the size of government, limiting its ability to spend our money and its ability to interfere in our lives and activities. handing power for both to a new set of government commissions will not do that.

iow there is no difference between the main candidates or their supporters on this issue.

individuals
how confident are we that these ppl will keep to their promises.

we know a lot about rajapaksa. we know he has not kept most of his economic promises (thank god) and has kept his promises regarding the terrorists (thank god again). we can generally expect rajapaksa to govern from a pragmatic center left position as he has done so far.

about fonseka we don't know much beyond his constant whining (bc he thinks he is not being appreciated enough), and his willingness, through resulting bitterness, to enter unprincipled incoherent alliances and endanger his fellow officers/subordinates/superiors by uttering irresponsible and false statements, in revenge. not very good signs for a man who wants to be a political leader.

conclusion

on the main issues other than national security there is not much difference.

on national security it is clear fonseka and his supporters must be defeated to ensure we continue to enjoy the benefits of liberty from terrorists in the future.


i will vote accordingly. you should too.

results
i think by giving a big margin of victory for mahinda rajapaksa, sri lankans will send a clear message of unacceptability of anyone who welcomes and works to further, the agendas of unrepentant peaceniks and terrorists supporters.

opposition after ridding itself of peacenik leaders, could have made this a more competitive election (and gained my vote) by fielding someone who does not accept such support and who has clear contrasting pro market economic policies. they may still have lost this election, but they would have remained with a firm principled platform to build on and absorb any dissatisfaction with the next rajapaksa administration. they blew it.

now they will have nothing to build on after fonseka's inevitable defeat. most we can hope for is that they will get the message as to what kind of opposition is needed.


my twitter - http://twitter.com/sittingnut
this blog's twitter - http://twitter.com/llibertarian

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE TO DO?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
sittingnut said...

this is the deleted comment of anon @ 1/09/2010 3:48 pm:
>
Ditto Anon.

Aney Surngana Lokey ponaya mahtaya, [name] don't vote, do they aney ponaya ?

I repeat you are a ponaya. number one ponaya

>

---
for the record, my family always vote. we made a point of voting first on the election where jvp threatened to kill those who voted ( i did not have the vote being too young, but went to polling station with others), even though bodies were burning 200m from voting booth .

that is unlike cowards who obeyed the terrorists in 2005, and those who ran to foreign countries then .

i am proud of that.


-
and i do have others things to do, but this is important to me precisely bc of things like the incidents i referred to above

Anonymous said...

let the corruption ruin the country, but let's not let the UNP take over, no?

sittingnut said...

corruption will be there whatever the governing party .

foneska's supporters (including present unp leadership)should not be allowed power bc they are unrepentant peaceniks and pro terrorists.

those are points i made in post. why do you ignore them? bc they are true?

Anonymous said...

Haha Gonseka chickened out of Rathu Ira debate, worse he used filth against Dayasiri Jayasekara coward for going in the first place!

sittingnut said...

i heard that too

Anonymous said...

ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

By Sujith Madugalle

Jan10, Colombo: In a dramatic change of his policies opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka says he will keep the executive Presidency to do the maximum service to the public.

In a television interview telecast by Independent Television Network last night retired General said he is seeking a mandate from people to rebuild the country and therefore he too need some powers to uphold that task in the next six years.

"I am not in a position to abolish the executive presidency if I am elected. If people giving me the mandate it does not mean that I have to abolish the post and go home. I have to stay in the president post with powers," he said.

Earlier Opposition candidate has pledged to abolish the executive presidency and agreed to vest its powers to Prime Minister and Parliament.

Main opposition UNP and Marxist JVP agreed to back Sarath Fonseka at the forthcoming election on the key condition of abolishing executive Presidency with immediate effect if he is elected.

However, the opposition candidate has contradicted that pledge in the last night TV interview and said he would keep five ministries under him if he is elected to the post.

"Defense, Finance, Education, Health, and Employment ministries will be directly handled by me in my government," he added.

January 9, 2010 11:44 PM

http://www.colombopage.com/archive_10/Jan1263101814RA.html

Raju said...

Gonseka's ageements with TNA are rumoured to have been signed in the presence of Western Ambassadors. Clearly another "internation agreement" like an earlir one.

It does not surprise me since Western countries are running and funding the Gonseka initiative. They've borrowed all the (lame) Obama slogans as well.

By the way S.L. Gunasekara the seemingly last honest patriot has as always raised the red flag for the dangers facing Lanka once again being straight and to the point with no sugar coating. He has out lined the dangers of Gonseka as well as the flaws of MR under a book/booklet called "Rajapaksa or Fonseka: The issues, facts, conjecture and responsibilities "
http://www.nation.lk/2010/01/10/newsfe6.htm

Anonymous said...

Sittingnuts, Indi Padashow is maintaining another psycho blog and he's teasing you. have a look at the link.

http://lefroy.wordpress.com/2010/01/12/lefroys-list-of-national-heroes/

sittingnut said...

anon @ 1/10/2010 3:58 pm: and raju:

thanks for the comments and links

--

anon @1/12/2010 4:05 pm:
i doubt indi.padshow writes that blog . it is at times funny ( which indi.p was never ) and writer is knowledgeable about certain things that padashow is certainly ignorant about.

indi padashow did promote it. and it could be a collaborative blog


as for their mocking me,

by posts like the one in link , and including ppl like me in it, it is not so much ’sittingnut’ and others listed, that lefroy is mocking but those real heroes who gave up their lives and limbs fighting murderous terrorists.

that whole blog was created for that purpose .

Anonymous said...

Nope, Indi padashow is not Lefroy.
but there is lot of comnication between those two right now.
Indi promtes L and L comments on Indi's blog every post.
Likely its his lover.

Anonymous said...

SN, I left a few comments on Lefroy idiot's blog about Indi Padashow and he isn't publishing them. Given my context and the manner in which Lefroy idiot replied to the e-mail address i left on the comment form, i have every reason to believe Indi padashow and Lefroy are one and the same. Indi Samarajiva's split personality disorders need no introduction, no?

Good joke bugger actually forgot to send it from another e-mail ID. Apparently the reply i got came from indi@indi.ca. How to send you the screenshots? Take my word, Lefroy is Indi Padashow's latest evil Avatar.

Anonymous said...

Are you sure that Indi padashow and Lefroy are the same ?

I doubt it very much.

If that is the case this would be seious fun as Lefroy has wrtten som weird posts and has is also a commentor on indi.ca on a regular basis.

Lets get the evidance.
So coll, dude

sittingnut said...

as i said i doubt they are the same.

Anonymous said...

SN, Please post your e-mail ID here. I'll send you the stuff Indi Padashow sent me from his e-mail ID indi@indi.ca. I am serious, Indi is Lefroy.

sittingnut said...

my email is in profile page