The Supreme Court (SC) has sent out a clear message to one and all: It will never stop any elections. Hearing the application filed by the TNA, which sought the declaration of nominations gazetted for the Eastern Province mini polls void, the SC on Monday ordered that elections be held and the petitioners discuss matters related to their security with the area commanders of the armed forces. They were allowed to move the court unless their request for security was granted. The TNA had, in its application, complained of violence in the Eastern Province and a possible intimidation of voters.

One couldn’t agree with the SC more! Any flawed election is better than no election at all. For elections are the lifeblood of democracy. True, election violence deals a blow to democracy but that is a different matter altogether, which needs to be tackled separately. Franchise like muscles suffers disuse atrophy unless regularly exercised. The journey of a nation towards a dictatorship begins with the absence of elections, which is also the medium in which anarchy and terrorism thrive.

Democracy in this country has survived thanks to elections. It would have been given a grand burial way back in the late 1980s, but for the elections however marred they may have been by violence and rigging. The Pillaiyans of the South wearing red aka our Rathu Sahodarayas went all out to sabotage elections at that time but they could not break the will of the people who were determined to keep the flame of democracy burning. Likewise, elections have stood the people of the North and the East in good stead. But for elections, they would have been left without any representatives to articulate their grievances in Parliament.

It is a supreme irony that the TNA is today complaining of violence and the intimidation of voters, having been a beneficiary of those twin evils in 2004. This is what the EU Election Observation Mission Sri Lanka 2004 said of the situation in the North and the East of the country during that election: “…the LTTE intended that no other rival Tamil party (or Tamil candidate from the mainstream political alliances) to the TNA would be able to claim to represent Tamil interests. A chilling message to this effect was sent early in the campaign when a UNP candidate and an EPDP activist were murdered. Incidents such as this seriously restricted the right of parties other than the TNA to campaign freely in the North and East….”The polls monitors’ conclusion was: “The events that took place in this part of Sri Lanka [the North and East] during the course of this election were totally unacceptable and are the antithesis of democracy.”

Those who are not opposed to Prabhakaran’s violence and election rigging and have entered Parliament with his backing have no moral right to condemn Pillaiyan, who is running riot in the East. If Prabhakaran is a hero to anyone then by the same token Pillaiyan must also be a hero. Both of them, to us, are cowards using arms to terrorise unarmed men, women and children into submission.

However, the fact that the TNA has no moral right to condemn Pillaiyan is no reason for the government to turn a blind eye to his violent campaign to suppress political dissent. It is incumbent upon the government which boasts that terrorism has been banished from the East to create an environment conducive to the mini polls. Pillaiyan cannot operate so freely without the blessings of the government. He must be caged. The sooner the better! Safety of all candidates must be ensured and clean elections held if democracy is to be rekindled in the East. President Mahinda Rajapaksa addressing the heads of media institutions and editors said yesterday all terrorists were bad and no terrorists were good. One cannot but agree with him. There is hardly any difference between Prabhakaran and Pillaiyan. If Prabhakaran is a bad terrorist, by the same token Pillaiyan is an equally bad terrorist. Both must be dealt with in the same way.

It is not from individual terrorists that the Eastern Province people must be liberated. They must be liberated from the clutches of terrorism, regardless of the perpetrators. Above all, elections must be held