70,000 Votes Too Many: Why Sri Lankans Deserve Their Corrupt Politicians

Upon my return to Sri Lanka in mid February, I was assailed by a piece of news that has left me with a bee in my bonnet that has not budged in the month that has passed since. Not merely I but friends and relatives all appear to have been united by the feeling of disgust upon hearing that Lohan Ratwatte, son of former deputy defence minister Anuruddha Ratwatte and cousin to former President Chandrika Bandaranayake, has been elected to a provincial council seat.

Lohan Ratwatte received 70,372 votes, was placed third in the preferential votes, and is now the newest UPFA member of the Central Provincial Council. To give the people of the Central Province a measure of respect they, at this point, don’t appear to deserve, let us assume that the Ratwattes who are adept at ballot box stuffing rigged this to some extent. Let us be still more generous and discount the large extended Ratwatte clan and its cronies that must make up a sizeable number of people in the environs of Kandy. Even after the most generous concessions are made it pains me to think that at least 30,000 people must have voted for this man. Is Sri Lanka so entrenched in feudal style politics that the Ratwatte name (an extension of the Bandaranayake name) is enough to carry a mass murderer to success?

Lohan Ratwatte has been accused of multiple counts of voter intimidation, thuggery, ballot rigging and murder. The most serious of the charges levelled against him is his involvement in the cold blooded murder of ten muslim youths belonging to an opposing party in Udathalawinna, near Kandy, in 2001. He was also the chief accused in the murder of Joel Pera, the rugby coach who was brutally gunned down in Colombo. He is of course not alone in such infamy among the Ratwattes with both his brothers, Mahen and Chanuka, also accused of various misdemeanours and felonies including murder. If nothing else, one must judge the man by the company he keeps.

So what exactly were the people in the Central Province thinking of when they cast, in their thousands, votes for this criminal (the fact that he was never convicted in the Udathalawinna case is immaterial – what else is to be expected after the multiple disappearances of witnesses, strong armed removal/transfer of investigating policemen who executed their duties too thoroughly, assaults on investigative journalists, intimidation of magistrates etc. etc.)? Were they merely signalling their support of the UPFA government led by President Mahinda Rajapakse? If this were the case, did they still not think it appropriate to indicate displeasure at this most offensive of candidate choices, which must reflect poor judgement or a lack of principles in our Commander-in-chief who is reported to have invited Lohan to contest the election?

This particular election victory, if nothing else, drives home that the people of Sri Lanka deserve the corrupt politicians they are sometimes saddled with. Our people, however well educated the general public is and regardless of our exemplary standards of literacy, do not seem to understand that a vote is for selecting people capable of public service. Instead we have chosen the self-serving riffraff who govern us and curtail our freedoms with impunity. The Mervyn Silvas, the S.B. Dissanayakes, the Lohan Ratwattes of Sri Lanka are all of our own making. They are nothing without our votes. It is we who aid and abet their crimes by empowering them. Collective guilt is a term aptly applied to us all who vote to enable the rape of our motherland by these goons. We all have blood on our hands even if those hands have never done more than place a cross on a ballot sheet.