Dayan Jayatilleka’s “Balance” Is Out Of Balance

By Shyamon Jayasinghe - Colombo Telegraph

I am amused to observe Dayan Jayatilleka (DJ) jumping up like Jack in the box upon getting the news that the UNP General Secretary, Attanayake, had crossed over to the government side. DJ cries: “the balance is restored.” There are two major flaws in DJ’s “political analysis.” Firstly, it is rendered false by actual statistics. Secondly, DJ’s “analysis” place an exaggerated value on cross-overs in affecting public perception. Cross-overs are now becoming such an unbelievable thing that its potential impact on public perception is on a curve of diminishing returns. I do not claim to be a “political analyst” but these flaws in DJ’s reasoning seems utterly evident to me.

With regard to the first mentioned flaw readers are invited to take a look at some valuable statistics furnished by the Daily Mirror in its issue of 10th of December. This show the relative preference votes obtained by the respective cross-overs on both sides to date at the last elections.

Government cross-overs:

Tissa Attanayake- came in from the national list and so cannot show a voter base at all

Jayantha Ketagoda-22,193 votes

Cross-overs in support of Common Opposition Candidate:

Rajitha Senaratne-66710 votes

Dayan with MSDuminda Dissanayake- 101,384

Navin Dissanayake-   43,514 votes

Wasantha Senanayake-51,124 votes

Rajiva Wijesinghe- National List. No votes

Arjuna Ranatunge-27,796 votes

Perumal Rajathurai- 49,228 votes

Unais Farook- 10,851 votes

MKDS Gunawardena-19,734 votes

Hirunika Premachandra-139,034  votes

Jayatissa Ranaweera-40,382 votes

Peshala Jayaratne-37,547 votes

Prasanna Solangaararachchi- 43,332 votes

The second flaw is becoming evident by the growing support for the Common Opposition Candidate, Maitripala Sirisena, despite the crossovers to the government side. Political jumping has now become an incredible joke that only serves to demonstrate absurdity, corruption and chaos in governance that is a direct the outcome of the Presidential Executive system prevailing in Sri Lanka. Hence, the Common Opposition benefits by this ugly spectacle.