The Indian general election of 2014 was held to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha, electing members of parliament for all 543 parliamentary constituencies of India. Running in nine phases from 7 April to 12 May 2014, it was the longest election in the country's history.
Indian Election Commission now practices slow phase election schedule; not in a hurry; not in one day. This strategy avoids all kinds of polling day violence; booth capturing and other threats. Election commission could deploy enough security forces for free and fair election. Political parties also started behaving good. Any bad incident would affect the image of that political party and also affect their potential in the next phases. Enough security could be deployed in each location on different schedule dates. Media could effectively cover polling process. Nowadays poll violence completely come to an end in India. Political parties don't even attempt to any violence activities. People have more confidence in the election process and come in large numbers to booth and cast their vote with greater responsibility.
Now coming to military role in democracy in Sri Lanka...
Military have been so effective in the northern and eastern part of the nation. Military intelligence cover all political leaders, all spiritual and religious leaders, all other activists and citizens too. Military do occupy more parts of this region and also involved in civil services activities too. With the military presence, the elected Provincial government in north region couldn't function with total freedom and independence. Military have been deployed on the roads; inside the university and all other spy activities too.
Citizens living in north, have seen more violence for many decades. So, now they try to live their life. They do co-operate with military and other security forces and live life as it is. From their perspective, the situation is not the best; but it is not the worst; so they just take it as it is; no complaints.
So, government face absolutely no challenge from the people of northern and eastern regions. Right now, the government face challenges from the rest of the island; from their own friends and colleagues; from their own spiritual leaders.
Right now, government don't face any challenges from the military. The Mahinda Rajapaksa government could now trust and rely on military forces only.
It is so surprise; one monk said; that monk has been the mastermind for this curent crisis. In Sri Lanka, monks are very active in politics. Do monks have voting rights?
In fact, Sri Lanka monks follow the path of Buddha. In the early part of life, Buddha was a king. Then Buddha left the kingdom and gave up politics. Sri Lanka monks follow the early part of the life of Buddha. Sri Lanka monks are very active in politics.
So far, Mahinda Rajapaksa had to rely on police intelligence for the central, western and souther parts of Sri Lanka. Police intelligence miserably failed in Sri Lanka. Police intelligence failed to capture information on all these current developments. Now, Mahinda Rajapaksa left with no option. Mahinda Rajapaksa has to replace police intelligence with military intelligence.
Right now, when you walk on the roads in Jaffna, you would see lot of military personnels with machine guns. From December 2014 onwards, that would be the situation in all parts of Sri Lanka. Whether you are in Kandy or Colombo, you would see military personnels with machine guns every where in Sri Lanka.
It is not an easy task. Military in Sri Lanka is the most complex and challenging one. In India, you could depute soldiers in any part of India; you could ask the soldiers to serve in Darjeeling or Kashmir or Mumbai or Madurai. But not in Sri Lanka.
In Sri Lanka; it is so sad; we need to use all those divisive labels in making things clear to all. In Sri Lanka, people carry divisive labels such as Tamil and Singala. In Sri Lanka, only Singala people could join in the military. It is quite natural for the Singala military to act against Tamil civilians. There has been no challenge at all. It has been so easy for the Sri Lanka military to manage people in the northern region.
Now, Sri Lanka is facing new challenge and crisis. Singala military has to act against Singala civilians. It would not be easy for Sri Lanka soldiers. Sri Lanka military would revolt against Mahinda Rajapaksa government.
Every challenge has an innovative opportunity. Mahinda Rajapaksa has the solution on hand. Karuna. Karuna is the best friend of Mahinda Rajapaksa. The President could appoint Karuna as a military general and give the responsibility to manage the challenges in central and southern part of Sri Lanka. Karuna has military experience; could recruit Tamil soldiers and use them against the people of southern Sri Lanka.
So, Mahinda Rajapaksa could not use the current military to manage the current crisis. Currently all politicians are revolting against Mahinda Rajapaksa; all monks are against Mahinda Rajapaksa; now the military would revolt against Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Only way out to escape from the current crisis is just cancel the election and quietly rule Sri Lanka for the next two years. Blame it on Pope. As Pope is visiting, let us postpone the election indefinitely.
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