Ceylon's 10,600,000 people expect a good show during their national elections, and the proceedings often resemble a carnival as much as a contest. The biggest crowds last week gathered to hear the top rivals: Madame Sirima Bandaranaike, 48, the world's only woman Prime Minister, and bachelor Dudley Senanayake, 53, whose conservative United National Party was supported by breakaway members of Madame's Freedom Party.
Speaking to a jampacked rally at Kalutara, south of the capital city of Colombo, greying, bespectacled Senanayake wore a green shirt (his party color) and gripped an elephant tusk (the elephant is his party emblem). He cried, "We must beat this government. If it continues, it will spell disaster for Ceylon!" Another antigovernment candidate derided the "socalled golden brains" of Madame Bandaranaike's Marxist Cabinet members and said they were "full of cow dung."
Cheer Leader. The opposition hammered away at Madame's links with Red China. Senanayake charged that the recently signed maritime pact with Peking would allow Red China to use the port of Trincomalee, thus making Ceylon a base for the Communist struggle to control India. Anti-Chinese feelings were so strong that a crowd mistakenly mauled two Japanese newsmen and stole their watches and cameras.
Madame Bandaranaike whizzed through her constituency in a black Mercedes, always accompanied by a cheerleader who helped with the applause. She was usually clad in a blue sari (her party color), and spoke from platforms adorned with a picture of her husband, the late Prime Minister Solomon West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, who was assassinated by a Buddhist monk in 1959. Though she no longer wept in public when recalling her husband, Madame was still campaigning in his memory, promising to follow his policies, which "stood for the middle path in politics." She argued that "the cooperation of the Marxists is essential for the progress of socialism in the country."
Antagonized Monks. Madame's magic was not sufficient last week to over come 41 years of misrule, corruption and wholesale nationalization that has crippled Ceylon's once-flourishing economy based on tea, rubber and coconut. She had also antagonized the numerous and influential Buddhist monks, whose saffron-robed leaders were conspicuous on Senanayake's election platforms.
Though the genial, toddy-swigging Ceylonese love political oratory and revel in elections, they are not very good at issuing a mandate. Last week's election was no exception. In the voting for 151 parliamentary seats, Madame's Freedom Party took a bad beating. Though carrying her own constituency, she and her Marxist allies could muster only 55 seats. Dudley Senanayake's U.N.P. captured 66 seats, an impressive advance but still not enough to form either a majority or a government.