We like promises

Who said that holding elections to provincial councils is a farce ? Certainly, the people of the North Western Province are not saying that now. Despite the mayhem , murder, postal votes being taken away forcibly, assaults and incidents of arson, they will want provincial council elections. They will want this election campaign to go on for ever. The people of this dry zone region who have been much neglected— when compared to the attention paid to those in and around Colombo—- are now receiving the attention of the government as never before.

Since nominations day the government has been giving the people of the Wayamba the good news with regularity. Inter City express bus services from Colombo to Puttalam and back in just two hours; fleets of new buses, rice mills, new roads , improved schools, more irrigation, facilities. And yesterday a new University of Wayamba.

It may take centuries to build a university of international standing. But, hey presto, in just one cabinet decision, the youth of the Wayamba are blessed with ‘a university’. Can any one tell us how many ‘universities’ we have now ?. During the first two decades of Independence we had only two universities— those of Colombo and Peradeniya. Now we have the universities of : Kelaniya, Jayawardenapura, Moratuwa, Open University, Jaffna, Batticaloa Sabaragamuwa, Ruhuna, Mihinitale and many more which we have not been able to keep track of. And now a university of Wayamba. Nevermind when the university will be open to students. Nevermind, how many of them will find jobs or whether those graduates of older universities have jobs. We want universities and any person against them are those who want to deprive the poor youth from the backwoods the benefits of higher education.

Will the University of Wayamba be a centre of excellence ? Will Sri Lankans from other provinces also be able to send their children to Wayamba? And will our rulers, whose hearts bleed for the poor rural youth, send their children to the Wayamba University ?

Nonsense. Not even the VIPs of the Wayamba will be sending them there. For long years Sri Lankan leaders have found that their brood cannot study in our institutions of higher learning because they are not able to move about freely with the local- yokels. Their parents are the big shots of Sri Lankan politics. Thus, their poor kids have to go to those prestigious universities in the west, preferably Oxford or Cambridge. Failing which one of the Ivy League universities of the United States or even the lesser ones there or the red brick universities in UK will do.

Now that provincial councils elections are to be held on a staggered basis, we do hope that all the other provinces will be blessed in the same way as the North Western Province. Some cynics say that once the elections to the province are over some of the facilities provided to this province after nominations day may be moved by unseen forces to other provinces such as the new buses that have appeared there. This could be vicious opposition propaganda. Perhaps some of these provinces may not need such facilities because they already have them. Many have one or more universities. But more universities will do no harm.

Some say that this government as well as its predecessor UNP government have opened more universities than public toilets. But this is cynical comparison. Still there are citizens who cry out in desperation for public toilets such as the reader from the provinces whose letter pleading urgently for public toilets in Colombo was published recently in The Island. This provincial yokel complains that when he visits Colombo he is forced to order food from restaurants so that he can gain entry to a toilet. Today in The Island there is a letter published of a lady pleading for a paid women’s toilet at the Pettah bus stand.But universities and other grandiose projects can fetch more votes than public toilets and thus we feel that the public will have to hold back their urgent human desires till our city fathers decide otherwise. Where public toilets in Colombo are concerned it can be rightly claimed by the PA that the UNP demolished them and sold the land as real estate.

Promises galore are being made. The UNP is not to be outdone though Tuesday’s TV had UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe promising all whose property had been damaged and been subjected to ill treatment by PA supporters compensation when the UNP wins the election.

Sri Lankan voters do believe in promises of politicians. PA leader Chandrika Kumaratunga among the many promises made in 1994 pledged" bread at Rs. 3. 50 and Rs. 1500 per unemployed youth. And it is said that these promises did make the voters go her way. Whether they have been kept let the people say. But we Sri Lankans like promises of politicians and the provincial councils election campaigns do provide that opportunity.