I'm not sure how to feel about that. My immediate response was disappointment that driving around Colombo this summer I'll still encounter that smugly victorious face on every billboard I come across, the moustache evoking Orwell's Big Brother, and inspiring a small twinge of discomfort each time.
Still, perhaps better the devil you know. The two dozen odd other candidates never stood a chance, and the incumbent President is always at an advantage. It's no surprise that Mr Rajapakse decided to call an election so soon after his military victory. After all, without the LTTE enforced boycotts which got him into power, he has to actually appeal to the people and delivering a victory always goes down with the electorate (it worked for Thatcher in the eighties), especially when it's the resolution of a conflict that spills over into voters' lives with hideous regularity.
But from my cushy seat in London I'd thought that Rajapakse's blatant nepotism, the institutionally sanctioned corruption, the lack of press freedom might give most voters pause for thought. Perhaps they'd vote for General Fonseka, or one of the other candidates, thinking, as Britons did in 1945, that wartime leaders do not necessarily make good post war leaders.
My thoughts turned out to be so much first-world bullock manure. We go on and on in this country about 'loss of faith in the political system,' but my, ah, "(wo)man-on-the-street" tells me that Rajapakse's cheerful abuses of power aren't a factor for the electorate, because they assume that's what any leader will do, and that without that detractor the bigger war crimin- err, sorry, 'war hero' wins hands down.
Sometimes you need to step back.
We have our own election coming up, and with it will come a mass exodus of MPs, thanks to the expenses scandal. The parliamentarians who surreptitiously siphoned off the taxpayer's money have been named, shamed, and will shortly be sent away with their tails between their legs.
I knew that in Sri Lanka corruption was de rigeur. The thing that leaves me cold is that the electorate simply tolerate, even expect it as a fact of the political machine.
When the General Election hits, we'll be grotesquely spoilt for choice. Yes, we all know that it'll be either Labour (a dismal prospect) or the Tories (downright frightening), but it's possible that the Nick Clegg will turn out to be one of the most influential Lib Dem leaders ever, holding whoever is in power to account. There'll be a proper opposition, and here our politicians live in terror of the media not the other way around. As the wonderful Alan Moore once wrote,
"People should not be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid
of their people,"
After all, however apathetic, fickle and short sighted, but if there's one thing the British public is good at, it's complaining about their politicians, before cheerfully ousting them.
Thank God for that, because it means that any party or politician who tries to pull Rajapakse style shenanigans in the UK will quickly be blasted by the burning annoyance of an irate public.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm lucky, lucky, lucky to be in Britain 11 months of the year.
