Elections Commission Omission
This has since been taken down. For a while there was a disembodied hand dangling
The President is daily giving buffets to 3,000 monks/cops/faculty at a time. Various government agencies (English and IT for example) are running ads praising him. The Road Development Authority is pasting posters for him and various government officers are posting pictures of him outside (including the OIC/Police Chief in Kohuwela, I think). And that’s just the stuff I know about. There is a grey area between Presidential duties and a campaign, but Mahinda is way in the red, or blue as it were. He’s spending taxpayer money on his election campaign, and I don’t want him to.
Waste is an election issue, but few people object to a free lunch for themselves. In that way and other Mahinda is making contact and encouraging votes from various demographics. Also in terms of pure presence, he has co-opted government advertising for his own image building for years. At some point, however, an independent elections commission should step in and say enough. He has said to take the hoardings and billboards down but that is not, er, enough.
The Sri Lankan incumbent has guns, money, police, state media, jobs, food and more on his side. There should be some reasonable limits. India has a reportedly independent elections commission which I think demands and audits receipts for campaign expenses. Some go to the party, some legitimately to the state. As Sri Lanka rebuilds its civil service after the war, the elections commission would be a good place to start.
What about the UNJVP and SF… SF’s paying millions of rupees on his office alone…and god knows how much on the campaign…
Should he disclose where he’s getting the money??
Should the UNP also come clean where they’re getting the funding?
Acro, SF (or the UNP) doesn’t have to show where he get’s his funding from, since he’s no more a government official. Being a private citizen, he is free to do what he wants, to an extent. (I think). But MR, as the President (and a part of, or ‘THE’ Government, so to speak), is responsible and answerable to the public (atleast in a proper democracy), of how he spends the money, or as Indi says, the difference between Prez duties and campaigning. A democracy being the key word here.
All that being said, we shouldn’t be writing this stuff. It could be monitored. I guess you guys heard the story about that guy who got arrested for scolding our most (dis)honourable president in his blog? Bloody hell,yeah.
that guy emailed the Prez and Gota with child porn and threats. I think that’s another scale of dumb. Discussing stuff is still OK