Mud And Blood
Anti Sarath Fonseka posters in Moratuwa
Last week the state TV channels showed ‘Last King Of Scotland’, about Idi Amin. Trying to raise fears that General (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka would become a military dictator, I hear. Which is odd. Now these posters from a ‘youth group’ (Namal Rajapaksa’s, I think) seem to allege that Fonseka will unleash a blood-letting like that which crushed the JVP insurrection. Also a bit, far fetched.
This is, I think, insane fear mongering. Sarath may have dictatorial tendencies, but to insinuate that he would repeat the carnage of the JVP insurrections is insane. For one, the modern JVP is on his side, and for another, there is no insurrection to put down. It is just fear mongering against the idea of a military background, and I think a bit grasping at straws.
Peaking Early
Mahinda’ s problem now is that he blew his load a bit early, blanketing the country with posters, hoardings and cutouts right out of the gate. Now many of those things have been taking down and there’s actually a competitive Sarath presence in parts of the country, and the city. There is still much more Mahinda for sure, but there is less than there was before.
Momentum and attention is largely on Sarath’s side and has been for much of the campaign. His candidacy was all the buzz, then his gaffes, now his actual competitiveness. Mahinda is campaigning on ‘promised delivered’, but a second term is not necessarily a reward as much as a new set of obligations. Which Mahinda, unlike the first campaign, has not clearly defined.
Sri Lanka is not a country where not many would ask for more of the same, but that’s effectively what Mahinda is promoting. Even in his last campaign he was advocating for a big change, so it’s strange to see him in this position.
Getting Close
Mahinda will still probably win. He is damn strong, and a lot of people do support him, for what I consider rational reasons. However, his campaign seems to sense that the race has tightened and they’re trying to drive Sarath’s unfavorables up. Mahinda’s corruption perception is not really going to go down, and many people do think he’ll be a dictator in the second term. Instead of fighting that, they seem to be trying to tar SF with the same brush.
The problem is that the corruption numbers they’ve dug up are small against the scale of perceived corruption in the MR regime. Also, the allegation that SF will get in and randomly kill 60,000 people (JVPers?) are a bit far fetched. Well, really far fetched. Mahinda is still ahead, but this seems a bit desperate.
Not a fan of Mahinda and the cronies.
From the public record , not a fan of SF either.
I’m not talking about all allegations about womenizing,ill-treatment of his subbordinate or simple vindictiveness(like framing general Pannipitya for a thing he did not do) and Hi corp incident.What is circulating in Sinhala is rather entertaining if not sad.
Strictly going by the public record of SF..
Six months ago.
1.He said 95% of the military victory belongs to army
2.said “Tamil Nadu politicians are jokers ” in a crucial stage of the war.
3.The country belongs to Sinhalese .Minority has to respect that fact.
4.When Ranil said “Thoppigala is just a jungle” and Mahinda said SF is suitable for the Salvation Army he spoke against them a praised Mahinda political leadership .
5.As soon as the war was over he wanted to increase the army’s strength to 300,000(The SL blogoshere was discussing this in your blog).
6.He wanted to keep Tamils in the camps so that LTTE cadres can be weeded out.
.
Now…
Please go through the above list and check how easiliy he has done a 180 degree turn on each item.I do not see any Sri Lankan journalist brining up quotes from six months ago and asking what changed his mind.
Then this whole saga about war crime charges.He is trying retract his statement as to please Sinhala Chauvinist while saying Gota and Chanvendra did it in the same statement.It’s non -denial denial!
One thing is clear.This guy belongs to Sri Lankan politics !He is a natural liar .I do not know his motives but given his military background I think people has a reason to be scared of the guy.
The least bad outcome of this clusterfuck is Mahinda’s re-election with a racer thin margin to remind him that he is not the king.
Some of the positives come out of the whole saga is
1.Minorities matter.You better keep them happy.
2.The whole country matters including north and east.
3.General resigned and decided to contest democratically(I give SF props for this.he could have tried to coup with his cronies in the army.Judging by the remours may be he does not have enough loyals insides due to the way he behaved.You can count Navy,airforce and police out ,too).
4.No Kings in a democracy .
Last six months has been amazing !Although it sucks Sri Lankan Democracy still kind of works sometime.
(as an added bonus ,If you know Sinhala ,the caste politics you should check the speach he gave in Ambalangoda after the war.Also the way spoke about Upul Ilangamage recently.he behaved as predicted)
Interesting.
I would be surprised if SF is not taking *everyone* for a very long ride.
The ride will be much worse if we re-elect MR as the driver!!
I actually feel happy with MR’s first ride. I feel much safer now and suddenly I have this hopefulness in me. I wonder what my ride would have been like had I gone with Ranil.
We would have been on a different level, approaching Thailand and Malaysia I think.
“Sarath may have dictatorial tendencies”
What else does he know ? he was not a leader of a political party nor has he done anything democratic or participatory.
All he has ever been used to is commmand and control. It gets the job done and he is good at it.
You ‘ve done cognitive studies. Connect the dots.
“Mahinda is campaigning on ‘promised delivered’, but a second term is not necessarily a reward as much as a new set of obligations”
This is where you ned to take into account the Sri Lankan context and not the western mind set.
Majority of the people [the uneducated masses have a vote and they are the majority] know that that he delivered his promise and therefore they think he should get a second term. They don’t undeerstand which you have very clearly mentioned “but a second term is not necessarily a reward as much as a new set of obligations”.
That is why they have a simple campaign “promise, delivered” . SF’s campaign , the obama spin off is too complex for the masses.
Masses don’t vote with their heads, they vote with their hearts.
This is where Ranil went wrong over and over again.
Loks like you bring bad luck to candidates.
Give a bit more credit to the masses. SF is also using the “I won the war” mantra. So people I talk to at least are expecting a close battle.
I for one, don’t want to vote for SF. Simply because, with Mahinda, you already know what you’re going to get. The other guy, not so sure.
Sadly though, Mahinda winning isn’t going to help the next big battle, corruption and law abiding governance.
The other day, in Bandarawella ,SF said Dullas Alahapperuma and SF were in the same school and the same class and Dullas was a lazy guy even in those school days.
But in reality, even they both went to the same school, Dullas was 12 years younger than SF and Dallas was never in SF’s class, that is a fact, and what SF said was a total lie.
Lol…! This is nothing compared to the lies being spun by the MR camp my friend! Why not talk about them?
Are you sure those MR lies can beat Mangala S. Goebbels ‘s lie factory…
NOT A CHANCE MY FRIEND!