Tracking back from some of the titles on the stats page I clicked on one of the posts whose contents I had forgotten and which linked to another one that was of relevance, and both of them kinda flashed me on the current political situation we are in. Yeah, it had to do with governance, political ‘deals’, ending the war, the ethnic divide and whether the Rajapakses style of governance was beneficial to the country. And, in addition to the contents of the posts, the comments to one of them, particularly the ones from ‘dj’ proved to be quite interesting (if ‘dj’ is who I think it is) with the benefit of hindsight.

The feeling of Dejavu is strong, in the sense that we are still saddled with much of the same conditions we were in when the pieces were posted nearly three years ago, in spite of the war being over and the spectre of Prabhakaran being a thing of the past. What we are free of, now that the war is over, are the suicide bombings, the deaths of the soldiers and the cadres on the other side, the huge amounts of money that was spent on the fighting, the fear and depression caused by the conflict and other results of the fighting that caused the economy to be in dire straits. And what we hoped for with the ending of the fighting was a period of peace that would bring about an ending of the inconveniences of road-blocks, security checks, closure of roads to safeguard those who were susceptible to planned attacks, a recovering economy and a stability that would ensure freedom of speech, freedom of movement and basic human-rights. However, not very much has changed. And the question to be asked is ‘why?’.

Now there is an alternative to the present power-structure with the advent of a candidate challenging the incumbent president at the impending election. The candidate, who is without any political experience, is running on a platform provided by opposition parties that pledges to end the rampant corruption and nepotism that has become firmly entrenched in our political firmament. However, we have to take him at his word – and his words in the past have not been exactly encouraging, at least with regard to the equality of minorities. There is also the fear from some quarters that a dictatorship could result in the event of the challenger’s victory and there is really no way to be sure, one way or the other.

The quandary for the folk who are sick to death of the current regime’s deeds and lack of being able to sort out the economy is that they are between the devil and the deep blue sea (or a rock and a hard place). The only hope that some of them I have spoken to have, is that a chance will have to be taken if we are to see an end to the corruption, nepotism, abuse of human-rights, danger to journalists and other conditions that cause fear and instability among a many of the citizens of this country. As one individual put it, “..you have to hold hands with the devil sometimes…and hope for the best.”

But now that we are looking forward, the question is, would the type of change that is on offer be better for the country, or what….?