The fact that the government was not going to hold the provincial council elections on the due date was obvious to even the most naive among our people. All the noises that emerged from the corridors of power pointed to this inescapable conclusion. It is clear that the government does not wish to hold these elections now and security considerations have been seized as an excuse to put them off.

The only way the government could postpone these elections sine die as it now stands, was by extending the current emergency islandwide. While the people of Sri Lanka are very well aware of the parochial reason why this was done, the wider world outside is not as well informed; and this is the world from which we are looking for investment and tourists. The view abroad will be that the security situation in Sri Lanka has deteriorated sharply and that is why the scope of the emergency previously restricted to the war zone and a few other areas has been widened to embrace the whole country.

Diplomats resident here are saying as much. One news agency quoted an East Asian diplomat saying: 'To anyone living in the country the intention of the government is very clear. But to someone outside, it gives the impression that the situation in Sri Lanka is quite bad.' The reaction of executives of one company soldiering mightily to place its shares abroad in the teeth of a stock market that has plummeted, was one of undisguised dismay. Long experienced in the tourist trade, they are only too familiar about how foreigners react to news like a countrywide emergency.

It is ironic that a government that campaigned for office describing the emergency as 'draconian' now finds that these selfsame emergency laws are very convenient to secure its political objectives. We do not think that the people by and large will feel as strongly about the latest postponement as they did when parliamentary elections were postponed on previous occasions. The provincial councils, after all, have cost the taxpayer a lot of money and given them very little return.

What will anger most people is not that they have lost an opportunity of electing new provincial councils on the due date but that their democratic right of franchise is being fiddled. At least some constituents of the ruling party have already rejected General Anuruddha Ratwatte's contention that it is not possible to secure the elections and at the same time fight the war effectively. The deputy defence minister is firmly on record saying that holding the elections at the present time would be most disadvantageous to the military effort. Not all his PA colleagues are with him on that one. Mr. Vasudeva Nanayakkara angrily stalked out of parliament while the LSSP did not vote with the government on the extension of the emergency. Deputy Minister Athauda Seneviratne was the exception, but he is more SLFP than LSSP nowadays.

It will be useful for the government to remember the temper of the electorate when elections are postponed under whatever pretext. The SLFP-led United Front claimed that the first adventure of the JVP in 1971 robbed them of time to implement their programme and extended their term by two years through the device of the 1972 constitution. What happened in 1977 is still vivid in the public mind. Then came President Jayewardene's infamous referendum in 1982 and this time the extension was for six long years. Given the penchant of our rulers to follow the bad examples of their predecessors, the mind boggles at the thought of what may be in store in the future.

President Kumaratunga's proclamation on the postponement of the PC elections was prefaced with the words that such postponement will be 'for so long, and so long only' as Part II of the Public Security Ordinance applies to a province for which a provincial council election is due. Those words seem to imply, as our legal commentator has said in an analysis on this page, that the framer of the order seemed to have been acutely conscious of the public reaction it would provoke. The chances are that we are going to have those soothing words tagged on with each renewal of the order.

Prof. G.L. Peiris has now assured that the provincial council elections will be held by the end of this year. The president was game for a presidential poll in November, remember? The signals are that both she and her party rate her as a stronger electoral prospect than the government, and would like her to first demonstrate to the country what the winning side is before a parliamentary election. The election feeling is very much in the air right now with Prof. Peiris's posters lavishly displayed in the city as he launches himself as the SLFP organiser for Colombo East.

So it may not be provincial council elections that will be first on the menu. The government, naturally, will time any election to serve its best advantage. That and not security considerations will be the criterion of what elections we will have and when. Although no security is available for PC elections that are due, there was plenty for an out-of-turn SAARC summit.