The Supreme Court decision last Tuesday (2) to dismiss the fundamental rights (FR) petitions challenging the date to hold the next general election surprised no one, and now it is up to the Election Commission (EC) which meets tomorrow (8), to decide as to when it can conduct the long-delayed poll. Less than 24 hours after the court verdict, the Health Ministry handed over a copy of the health guidelines for conducting the poll to the EC Chairman, indicating the urgency with which the Government is awaiting the polls, given the fact that austerity measures in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic are slowly but surely beginning to bite. Although it is all systems go for the polls, the EC in its submissions to the Supreme Court, stated that it would take a minimum of 10 weeks to make necessary arrangements given the health guidelines that need to be followed. Therefore, it could be safely assumed that the Commission would most probably be looking at a date in August. What that means is that for the first time since Independence, Sri Lanka would be without a sitting parliament for six full months, double the constitutionally provided period for conducting a general election and the envisaged date for the first sitting of the new parliament. With no parliament to approve funds to keep the government running, on Friday (5), the Government unveiled a second mini budget in excess of a trillion rupees to carry it through to August by presidential decree, citing provisions contained in Article 150 of the Constitution which provides for the President to utilise funds from the Consolidated Account. The first mini budget, which ran into a heftier Rs. 1.2 trillion, covered the period after the dissolution of Parliament on 2 March to end May. The second mini budget covers the three-month period from June to August and is around Rs. 200 billion less than the previous one, indicating the scarcity of funds. Of the Rs. 2.2 trillion that has been budgeted since the dissolution of Parliament, Rs. 1.3 trillion is for current expenditure while Rs. 910 billion has been allocated for capital expenditure. For all intents and purposes, the Government today is a caretaker one and was handed over the reins of power while being a minority in the last Parliament, largely on recognition of the results at the last presidential election by the then ruling United National Party (UNP) Government. Given these credentials and in the absence of an elected parliament, questions are bound to arise as to the nature of the spending of funds so far amounting to Rs. 2.2 trillion after an election was announced. The unprecedented command of resources in the unprecedented environment in which the election is to be held will no doubt warrant the attention of election monitors sooner rather than later. On the monetary aspect aside, questions are also being raised over the setting up of a presidential task force mandated to “build a secure country, disciplined, virtuous, and lawful society”. The problem is who decides as to what constitutes “security, discipline, virtue, and a lawful society”. If that critical job is left to the 13 members of the task force, all of whom are serving service personnel including the heads of all the state intelligence agencies directly responsible to the Executive, then that is cause for concern. What has got eyebrows raised is that expression of dissent is bound to take place, especially during the time of an election, and such expression could well be construed as being within the ambit of posing a security threat, an act of indiscipline, unvirtuous conduct, or simply unlawful in the eyes of the task force. In the absence of a legal definition of what exactly these words mean and encompass as well as what constitutes the exact mandate of the task force, these grey areas could well be leveraged for political advantage even though the right to dissent is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution. The fact that leaders of civil society, religious leaders, academics, and people of accomplishment have been left out in place of service personnel, given the wide scope of the mandate, will no doubt open up the Government to a barrage of criticism which could be counterproductive. Given that the task force has also been vested with power to order any state institution or official to carry out the requests issued by it, no matter what noble intentions justified its creation, the general perception is that it is simply a means of militarising government. Be that as it may, the biggest challenge before the EC today is to create a level playing field for all parties and the 7,000-odd candidates in the fray. It also has the added responsibility of creating a conducive environment for the candidates to campaign and canvass votes in a situation where the threat from Covid-19 is far from over. In fact, the number of positive cases have spiked over the past couple of weeks although the active clusters have been identified and are being monitored. Nevertheless, it is election season once again with the Government, first off the blocks, hitting the Opposition where it hurts. When former President Maithripala Sirisena launched his first salvo on the Bond Scam, and the Easter Sunday tragedy was being resurrected elsewhere, one could smell the election months ahead. The Opposition, broken and fragmented, will be hard-pressed to put up a decent fight. The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) of former Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa could end up as a gamble gone wrong by trying to duplicate the success of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). Support for the SLPP is essentially based on the Rajapaksa political capital and brand value in the rural hinterland, whereas Premadasa alone has no such residual brand value. Whatever the political capital that accrued to Premadasa at the last election was essentially that of his former party, but with its visionless leadership and the leader’s sole occupation being his self-preservation, whatever that was remaining of that brand value is also on the decline which means that the party too will have to struggle for survival. This may well be the last opportunity Ranil Wickremesinghe and his UNP will get in a long time to come to get its act together and present itself as a potent alternative to the Rajapaksa juggernaut. Wickremesinghe, a past master in the cat-and-mouse game of survival politics, may delight in the prospect of winning the home and home battle against Premadasa but is destined to lose the war against the real political opposition unless at least a semblance of a united outlook is projected at the hustings. He has certainly succeeded in once again pulling the rug from under the feet of his challengers who ended up the gum tree in their Supreme Court rendezvous. Both parties have only themselves to blame for the situation they find themselves in today. Having had four years to consolidate their political standing, although continuously undermined by the wily Sirisena right along, it is no one else but Wickremesinghe who must take the blame for the party's dismal performance in the last couple of elections. In the final analysis, it is the people who will be called upon to decide who should serve them in government come August. Covid-19 has provided them extended time to reflect on the past 72 years of self-rule, that has caused more burdens and problems to them than providing the success and prosperity that should have been their heirloom years ago. The ball is once again in the people’s court.