Who would benefit from Hela Urumaya campaign?

A party called Hela Urumaya is running for the elections next month. The main thing that differentiates it from other parties is that all the candidates are Buddhist monks. Another difference is that this party doesn't seem to have a complete manifesto. All that party is saying is that they are going to make a Dharma Rajya (religious state) and going to work for the benefit of Sinhala Buddhists. According to Lord Buddha, when you have a problem you have to find the following four things. Dhuka, dhukata heethuva, dhuka naethikiriima, dhuka naethikiriimee maargaya which means, the problem, the cause of the problem, necessity to solve the problem, the exact way to solve the problem. The main problem (dhuka) this Hela Urumaya sees is that as they say is forceful conversion of Buddhists into Christianity. They have identified several Christian missionaries (Jehova's witnesses, Assembly of God, Pentecostal church, etc.) as the main cause of the problem (dhukata heethuva). Then they have decided to put an end to this problem. (Dhuka naethikiriima). They have decided to go to the parliament and bring legislation against the missionaries in order to solve this problem. (Dhuka naethikiriimee maargaya.) But when I look at it what I see is a different picture. First of all, I don't see any forceful conversions. We've never heard of any Christian dragging a Buddhist, against his will, kicking and screaming and baptizing him. So there is no forceful conversion. Only unethical conversion. So my dhuka (problem) is a little bit different from the Hela Urumaya's interpretation. The Dhukata heethuva (cause of the problem) as I see it is, that the Buddhist clergy has neglected the people of the country and the vacuum is being filled by the Christian organizations who are like scavengers praying on the dead and the dying. There aren't enough Buddhist charities and other support groups to help the poor and destitute Buddhists. The dhuka naethikiriima (necessity to solve the problem) as I see it is, this is not a critical problem or at least the problem that should have the highest priority. If you look at the statistics, there are around 70% Buddhists in Sri Lanka. Around 7% Christianans. From those Christians, 6% (of the entire population) are Roman Catholics who are not accused of unethical conversions. Only 1% of the entire population belong to the sects in question. So Hela Urumaya is concentrating on the problem caused by 1% while LTTE is controlling, say around 20% of the land of this country and around 20% of the population. We are at a turning point in the 21 year old war. So in my book, 20% is more important than 1%. OK let's assume that Hela Urumaya is aware of the LTTE problem and they would want to solve that problem. Then we go to Dhuka naethikiriimee maargaya (the way to solve the problem). Well Hela Urumaya doesn't seem to have any. They have not published a detailed manifesto which describes the exact legislation that they would bring to stop the unethical conversions. They have not explained how they are going to handle the LTTE. They have stopped at Dhuka naethikiriima (necessity to solve the problem). They still don't have a plan on how to proceed from that point. As far as I can remember it was Indiana Jones who said that he would device a plan while on his way chasing after the villain on horseback. But this is not a movie. This is real life. Lives of real people are at risk. All they are saying is that the members of the parliament would object to anything that is harmful to Buddhism and Sinhala interests. The people who say they are going to vote for Hela Urumaya say that the two mainstream parties (JVP/SLFP alliance and UNP) will have to rely on minority parties to form a government so they are bound to give unfair concessions to the minorities and Buddhist monks of Hela Urumaya in parliament would object to that. But if you think about it, let's say if Hela Urumaya was not there and one mainstream party wins 95 seats in parliament while the other wins 90. That would make 185. There would be 40 seats going for other smaller parties of minorities. So the party that has 95 seats would need to get the support of 18 members from the minorities to form a government. (To make 113 out of 225 in the parliament.) So these 18 members will have a certain amount of say in the government. Then let's introduce the Hela Urumaya factor. If they win 10 seats in parliament, those 10 would have to come from the voters of mainstream parties because the minorities would not vote for Hela Urumaya. So the minorities will still have 40 seats while the number of the mainstream parties will lets say drop by 5 in each. So now one mainstream party will have 90 seats while the other would have 85. So now the party which has 90 would have to find 23 members to form a government. If Hela Urumaya supports this party with their 10 seats still they would need to get 13 seats from the minority. This is a reduced number but as Hela Urumaya say, they would not support a government that gives concessions to minorities. So if Hela Urumaya withdraws their support from the government, the governing party would need to find 23 seats from the minorities which would give the minorities more power. The governing party cannot rely on Hela Urumaya alone because even Hela Urumaya does not believe that they could win 10 seats. And since the demands of Hela Urumaya and the minority parties are mutually exclusive, the governing party would have to choose between Hela Urumaya and minorities. Since Hela Urumaya doesn't have enough to help form a government, they would have to rely on minorities. That's a fact. So Hela Urumaya entering the race for the parliament is going to increase the power of the minorities in the next government. If the major parties would not make concessions to the minorities the only outcome would be to go to another election within the period of just over another year which would cost another 600 million rupees. This is not rocket science. It's just elementary mathematics and common sense. If I were as paranoid as the Buddhist monks of Hela Urumaya, I would accuse the Hela Urumaya of conspiring with the LTTE to destabilize the Sri Lankan government. Because it's all what they are going to do by contesting. But I am not doing that because I know it's not conspiracy that's driving Hela Urumaya but mere lack of common sense.

Have a nice day.