Warring Parties

The truly great, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga appears to believe, should be truly late. By the time her cortege nears Sri Lanka's ancient royal capital of Anuradhapura, the crowd of 15,000 she has summoned to kick off her party's general-election campaign has been waiting for three hours in the baking sun. Inside the city's sports stadium, hundreds of people are squatting in clusters under a handful of umbrellas, while thousands more have surrendered to the heat and are lying in the dust. Exhausted party aides who finished their speeches hours ago have, for the last hour, been playing old reel-to-reel tapes...