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The Oldest English Newspaper in South Asia
Founded 4.2.1834
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Colombo 10, Sri Lanka.
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Political thuggery

The resort to violence, intimidation and blatant violation of laws and regulations has become a hallmark of politics in this country and there is no major political party and very few of the smaller ones that are free of this taint.

While election time has, for decades, been the high point of such violence and law-breaking, since the late 1970s, courtesy of J. R. Jayawardena's UNP Government, this became common during the normal course of governance and reached its peak under the succeeding R. Premadasa regime. During that final period of 'Dharmista' rule, political thuggery coalesced with savage counter-insurgency death squad campaigns and this country became one of the bloodiest on Earth.

Once taken root, such evils so permeate society and political culture that they are hard to eradicate. The coming of the People's Alliance to power in 1994 did see an end to death squads and much of the savagery of counter-insurgency, but certainly did not see the end of political thuggery.

Even if the PA can claim much in terms of efforts to resolve the ethnic conflict, the ending of massacres, disappearances and widespread torture, and democratisation of the mass media, the continuing incidence of thuggery is a dark blot on its record. The sole difference between the PA and UNP governmental regimes has been that in today's liberal environment, Opposition politicians too can and do indulge in thuggery while during the previous UNP governments, Opposition politicians were too busy resisting brutal repression to indulge in counter-thuggery.

Judging by the number of election-related incidents already recorded - more than 175 - the forthcoming elections may see another peak in political violence similar to the thuggery and rigging seen during the past UNP regimes, if minus the terrors of the death squads.

Thuggery, one of the last vestiges of the JR-Premadasa era, should be combated and not tolerated if the people's faith in the PA, expressed repeatedly in recent elections, is to continue.

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