Walking past the Vihara Maha Devi Park last night the absence of the monstrous cut out of the President was hard to miss. Large enough to cast a shadow over the entire Municipal Council, the unsightly addition to the park towered at about 60 to 80 feet, and when something that imposing goes missing you can’t help but notice.
The massive structure along with other billboards and posters, that pervaded Colombo as fast as a bad rash while the President casually picked petals about holding the Presidential Elections, have been taken down in compliance with election campaigning laws.
But what about that Rs. 1000 note?
Recently a case was filed regarding violation of election campaigning laws and the lengthy petition that was essentially about taking action against state media organisations that were promoting MR and completely ignoring the opposition presidential candidates, also included Rs. 1000 note that has the picture of the President in a stance which is being used in his campaign posters as well.
On the former, the Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake has issued a set of guidelines, but it’s a safe bet the guidelines will be taken very lightly.
As for the currency note, the counsel for the petitioner argued that this was a unique situation in which a picture of a Presidential Election candidate appeared on a banknote that’s currently in circulation, and since the same picture is being used in MR’s campaign as well, the court should consider ordering the notes to be recalled or alternatively since that wouldn’t be feasible, order that he refrain from using the exact picture of himself in his campaign.
The Attorney General protested saying that the note was issued in June, well ahead of the decision to hold the Presidential Elections a year in advance.
Court Proceedings were however, terminated. Which basically means no decision was made and if anyone feels the need to re-agitate the matter, they are free to file a motion.
Considering the situation at hand I’m somewhat inclined to believe that even if the note was issued in June, using the facsimile image in MR’s poster campaign, sort of makes the note part of his campaign as well. The banknote by itself is suggestive, with one side displaying solely a picture of MR with his hands raised in a victorious pose and other the side the soldiers arduously hoisting up a flag. It makes it seems as if he was single handedly responsible for winning the war.
That being said, I believe it isn’t appropriate that Sarath Fonseka is using a picture of himself in uniform in his campaign. It’s fallacious since he’s no longer a General.
It’s actually quite depressing reading the news. None of the Presidential candidates are worth voting for. At first I thought I’d just vote for whoever is the lesser evil, but by the looks of it they’re all equally bad. All right, I seem to have gone off on a tangent again…
Regarding the Banknote and Army uniform campaigning what’s your opinion?










