Cast your vote, defeat violence in 2010 presidential election

Sunday, January 24, 2010

"The best way to defeat heinous objectives of those who orchestrate violence and impunity is to go and cast your vote on 26th January, and bring true victory to democracy and then to whoever the candidate you wish to elect."

By Thrishantha Nanayakkara

On 26th January, 2010 Sri Lankans vote in the first presidential election after a 30 year war comes to an end. The decision they take will decide the future of the peaceful society in which their children and grandchildren live.


Whatever the outcome, the majority view will help the next president to win widespread support if the election outcome is a true reflection of the people’s judgment. However, if ballot rigging and violence augment the true sentiments of the people, the country will start to develop tensions with the rule of the president, giving rise to sabotage and extremism.

If we carefully look at past presidential elections, we notice that peaceful election environments were followed by high polling percentages and violent environments have done the opposite as shown in the following table.
Violent environments therefore deliver a double blow to the people. First it reduces the effect of moderate floating voters who vote based on principles from the political equation, distorting the political picture. Then it increases the impact of ballot rigging on the final outcome. Therefore, those who promote violence expect to achieve the above two heinous objectives.



This time, it is reported that there are 14,088,500 registered voters. It is a massive force if we want to show where the country should head in the next six years. However, this is the most violent election I have seen with four election related deaths so far, after 1988 presidential election. Therefore, if we assume the worse case scenario of 55% polling percentage as in 1988, a moderate expectation of 65%, and most optimistic estimate of 80%, we will be able to reduce the effect of 1,000,000 rigged votes from 11% in the worse case to 8% in the most optimistic case, and that of 500,000 rigged votes from 6% to 4% as shown in the following table. Therefore, if our polling rate is way high (~80%), the effect of the heinous efforts to rig ballots will dwindle more than proportionally.



Therefore, the best way to defeat heinous objectives of those who orchestrate violence and impunity is to go and cast your vote on 26th January, and bring true victory to democracy and then to whoever the candidate you wish to elect.