The just opening bud of hope
Posted on February 13th, 2018
By Rohana R. Wasala
“Although voters gave a clear win for Mahinda’s SLPP, they deliberately avoided giving SLPP 50%. In fact, Mahinda’s party received 2% less votes than January 2015 when he was replaced by Sirisena. Put it differently, the Sirisena Alliance (DNA, Swan) retained its 6.2 million votes while Mahinda lost 700,000 votes from his 5.8 million.” So writes Dilrook Kannangara (‘LG Election 2018: Voters Gave the Village to Mahinda for 17 Years, the Nation to Sirisena Alliance for 5 Years’/Posted February 12, 2018 Lankaweb).
Though I admire Dilrook Kannangara for his usually insightful political comments, I am afraid the above observation of his on the sweeping victory of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna unofficially led by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa at the recently concluded local government elections demonstrates some patently false logic. How can a whole electorate vote so as to “deliberately (avoid) giving SLPP 50%”? Mass clairvoyance is unheard of. Isn’t it more rational to compare the current statistics, rather than current ones with those of 2015, which in any case, cannot have remained the same. Probably, the fact that the voter turnout recorded at the LG elections took very high values such 85%, 78% etc in some places gives the impression that the number of votes cast in favour of any party has no chance of falling compared to 2015. Further, with each year passing new voters get registered and the electorate numerically expands. However, in the 2015 deliberately muddied electioneering background for which the regime change plotters were responsible, there were many unheeded vote rigging allegations in areas friendly towards that project, as Udaya Gammanpila once plausibly pointed out.
As early as just 100 days after the inauguration of the yahapalanaya, people started grumbling against it, because they had realized by then that they had been gravely misled to abandon Rajapaksa on January 8th. So they wanted to install Mahinda back in power as Prime Minister (since he couldn’t become president again) at the August 2015 general election. Even state opinion pollsters predicted a massive Mahinda victory. The UPFA campaign had been galvanized by ‘Mahinda magic’, something that still remains. But, what did Sirisena do? He made those infamous, illegal, immoral, malicious election-eve statements warning the people that he would not make Mahinda PM even if he won; by that ploy Sirisena succeeded in discouraging a substantial section of the innocent Mahinda supporters from casting their vote. Wasn’t this a deliberate ruse to baulk the success of the SLFP-led UPFA and that of Mahinda as well? Sirisena’s motive was not national interest; his motive was to fulfill a pledge made to his accomplice Ranil that the latter would not be deprived of his premiership; that Sirisena has always been his acolyte is a different matter. Sirisena himself confessed the fact that he wanted the UPFA to be defeated. He said this several times before, once very recently, too. So, it is beyond doubt that more people support Mahinda today than they had a chance to do during the past three years.
It is no longer a secret to anyone that what happened in 2015 (the so-called regime change) was the result of a conspiracy led from abroad. Why did Ranil have SF, and MS face Mahinda instead of doing so himself at the presidential elections of 2010 and 2015 respectively? As you the readers know the answer, I need not repeat it. MR policies were sound – rural based economic strategies with adequate attention paid to the urban sector, for example; and he achieved much for the country. This is undisputed. Even the plotters didn’t have much to criticize in the Mahinda ‘regime’ in that regard. That’s why they settled on the alleged corruption and autocracy issues as their main election platform. These are actually peripheral matters in governance. But. As is not unknown, Americans use such allegations against good strong leaders of countries that refuse to subserve the ‘American interest’ at the expense of their own national interest in order to bring them down through the strategy that they call ‘regime change’ (as Noam Chomsky points out). Ven Sobitha was roped in by these satanic traitors. They have not been able to think of anything more substantial or convincing against MR than that. In the case of MR’s ‘corruption’ they made a mountain out of a molehill. These corruption allegations are the same as those war crimes allegations. They remain unsubstantiated. Of course, if the witch hunting yahapalanists had the slightest excuse they’d have tried to invent more false charges against the Rajapaksas as they have tried to do in the case of Gota, who is widely believed to be incorruptible. We now know who the real rogues are.
Those who value the security of the country will not want to have it divided; they will not agree to the selling of the country’s assets; they will not allow their nation to be humiliated among other nations; they will not connive at religious fundamentalist enclaves (potential foreign terrorist havens) established in land wrongfully reclaimed from the country’s forest reserves on some pretext or other; they will not choose to turn a blind eye to the ancient archaeological sites in the north and the east being encroached upon or vandalized or simply razed to the ground by non-Buddhists. The present government is allowing all this apparently as a part of its policy. It’s true that even under the previous government forest reserve encroachment took place, but it was not meant to happen. The opportunistic Muslim politician whose notoriety in this connection is public knowledge has abused the concession given in a critical situation. Under a future truly patriotic nationalist government these things will stop, we can be sure. Such a government will have to introduce a new constitution which will strengthen the unitary state and eliminate the threat of division for ever. The traitorous attempt to pass a federalist constitution drafted by the sympathizers of the internationally proscribed LTTE under the supervision of interventionist foreign powers must be defeated at any cost. The victory of the SLPP augurs well for the nation.
February 13th, 2018 at 5:41 am
The message sent to Parliament by the SL voters on 10/02 is loud and clear. Attempts to interprit it otherwise with comparison of past figures are to say the least, futile.
February 13th, 2018 at 6:14 pm
Agreed. Such attempts are not only futile, but extremely foolish. That is exactly what the writer of this article says.
Regarding the matter that Dilroo Kannangara raises, readers may also check out the following link.
https://www.mahinda.info/2018/02/hansa-sandanaya-scream/
I have translated the first part of the article published in the website given above:
එජාප මැතිවරණ පරාජයේ පශ්චාත් මරණ පරීක්ෂණය පවත්වන එජාප මරණ පරීක්ෂකවරුන් විසින් අපූරු සොයාගැනීමක් කරගෙන තිබේ. ඔවුන් පවසන්නේ මහින්ද රාජපක්ෂ මැතිතුමන්ගේ ඡන්ද ප්රeතිශතය 2015 ජනාධිපතිවරණයට සාපේක්ෂව අඩු වී ඇති බවත්, මෛත්රී්පාල+එජාප+ජවිපෙ එකතු ව ඉල්ලුවානම් එය එදා 2015 ජනාධිපතිවරණයේ ප්රශතිශතයට වඩා වැඩි බවත් ය. නමුත් මෙම තර්කය පදනම් විරහිත පට්ට පල් කෙප්පයකි. ඊට හේතු පහතින්.
[1]. 2015 ජනාධිපතිවරණයේදී හංස සධානය ඡන්දය ඉල්ලුවේ එකම ප්රශතිපත්තියක් ජනතාව වෙත ඉදිරිපත් කරමිනි. ඔවුන් එකිනෙකා විවේචනය කර ගත්තේ නැත. ඒ අනුව ඔවුන් එකම දේශපාලන ප්රoවාහයක් ලෙස සලකා ජනතාව ඡන්දය දෙන ලදී.
එනමුත් මෙවර එජාපෙත්, මෛත්රීාපාලත්, ජවිපෙත් වෙන වෙනම ඡන්දය ඉල්ලන ලදී. ඔවුන් එකිනෙකා බරපතල ලෙස විවේචනය කර ගත් බව ඔවුන්ගේ මැතිවරණ කතා දෙස බැලීමෙන් ඔබට පැහැදිළි වේ. මේ සියලුම දෙනා පොහොට්ටු්ව විවේචනය කරන අතරේ, මෛත්රීයපාල පැවසූයේ එජාපය හොරු බවයි. එජාප හොරුන්ට පාඩමක් ඉගැන්වීමට තම පක්ෂයට ඡන්දය දෙන ලෙස ඉල්ලුවෝ ය. එජාපය පැවසූයේ මෛත්රීපපාල ගාව සිටින්නේ හොරු බවයි. තනි එජාප ආණ්ඩුවක් පිහිටවීමට එජාපය ඡන්දය ඉල්ලුවෝ ය. ජවිපෙ කිව්වේ ඒ දෙගොල්ලොම හොරු බවයි.
ඒ අනුව එජාපෙ කෙරෙහි කළ කිරුණ එජාප පාක්ෂිකයන් මෛත්රීාපාලට හෝ ජවිපෙට ඡන්දය දෙන්නට ඇත. නමුත් ඔවුන් එකතුව ආවානම් ඒ කාටවත් ඔවුන් ඡන්දය නොදී ගෙදර සිටිනු ඇත. එලෙස වෙන් වෙන්ව පොරොන්දු සහ සටන් පාථ කියමින් තරග වැදුණ පක්ෂ වල ඡන්දය එකතු කර පෙන්වීම තරම් මෝඩ වැඩක් ලොවෙත් නැත.
මෙය උදාහරණයකින් කිවහොත්, ශ්රී් ලංකාව, එංගලන්තය සහ අයර්ලන්තය සහ ඕස්ට්රේලලියාව ක්රි කට් තරගාවලියක් පවත්වා ශ්රීආ ලංකාව ජයග්රහණය කළා යැයි සිතමු. එවිට “ශ්රී, ලංකාව දින්නට වැඩක් නෑ. සුදු ජාතිකයන්ගේ රටවල් වන අපේ රටවල් වල ලකුණු එකතු කළොත් ශ්රීව ලංකාව උඩින්ම පරාදයි” කියා ඒ රටවල් කිවහොත්,,, අන්න ඒ වගේම මෝඩ කතාවකි මේ එජාපේ සමහරුන් කියන්නේ. අතනදී ඒ රටවල් එකම ටීම් එකකින් ආ යුතුයි වගේම, මෙතනදීත් හංස සංධානය තනි පක්ෂයකින් ආවොත් මිස වෙන් වෙන්ව ඉල්ලා අපි වැඩියි කීම ජාත්යින්තර විහිලුවකි.
Reply to those who argue that Mahinda would have been defeated if Maithripala, the UNP and the JVP contested him jointly:
The UNP coroners who are holding a postmortem on their party’s defeat have made a strange discovery: They say that the percentage of votes polled by Hon. Mahinda Rajapaksa has diminished relative to what he secured in 2015, and that if Maithripala, UNP and JVP contested as a combined force they could have got a higher percentage of votes than they did in 2015. But this argument is a baseless lie. A few reasons are given below.
(1) The Swan alliance fought the elections on a single platform. They did not criticize each other. Therefore people voted for them as a single political group.
But, this time around, Maithripala and the JVP contested the election separately. Election speeches reveal that they criticized each other. While all of them attacked the Pohottuwa (i.e., the SLPP), Maithripala charged that the UNPers were thieves. The Maithripala faction urged the voters to vote for his party to teach the UNP thieves a lesson. The UNP’s counter argument was that those who were with Maithripala were the thieves. Therefore they asked the voters to vote for the UNP to form a pure UNP government. The JVP’s criticism was that both those parties were rogues.
Therefore UNP supporters who were disappointed of their party might have voted for Maithripala or the JVP. But if they came as a single group the UNP voters would have refrained from voting. It is extremely foolish to add together the votes of competing parties that made conflicting election pledges and uttered separate slogans. To illustrate this, let’s imagine that in a cricket tournament between Sri Lanka, England, Ireland and Australia, Sri Lanka won. If it was argued by the other (losing) countries that Sri Lanka’s win was meaningless because when the scores of the White countries were added, then Sri Lanka would have been easily beaten. Such an argument will be considered foolish. Some UNPers are making that stupid argument. In the case of cricketing analogy, the argument would have been valid if those three countries played against Sri Lanka as a single team. Likewise here the same argument would not hold water unless the Swan alliance contested the elections as a single front. To do otherwise is an international joke.
February 14th, 2018 at 7:16 am
JVP with the best of intentions are trying to fight the courruption in our leaders which had failed because the whole country seems to find fighting courruption is not their priority unless one is serious taxpayer.The whole country seem to be not intrested in that subject which will one day harm their wellbeing when the country is bankrupted and they have to suffer the lack of benifits fom the country’s lack of wealth because the courrupt have put the country into debt.Sad situation is the people are crooked,stupid and ignorant,willing to accept lower standards which we find it unacceptable in this day and age.
There was an old saying,’kamala balla to henagawath danne naha.’ ie the dog living in the black smith’s yard the lightning in the sky doesn’t matter.
I had several funerals this year alone where people died due to bad treatment in the hospitals where I think there are fake doctors and fake staff.Only 4 days ago my cousin was buried in Mirihana where she used the few millions she earned
in Australia,over a small ailment was admitted to a private hospital where the procedure cause a severe haemorrhage, after grabbing her millions sent her to Kalubowila hospital to die.This the second cousin that died in the same hospital after an accident in Mirihana where a drunk three wheeler fellow knocked him down.
Another relative of mine died at the ward just below Sudath’s home, ward where several young relatives have died with problems with their kidneys. That poor chap had no place put his coffin as he had paid all his money for hospital attendants at Rs 3000 per day and he was happy to leave the miserable world.
They had his body or coffin in the vehicle with no place house and I was told my phone the predicament but I had a Sudda couple was about to land in Colombo and move to my house to spend their honeymoon and my family hurriedly got the coffin out to the cemetery and delayed the arrival of my guests though people came, about 150 in turn for the malabatha.My guests noticed the people in white in our home where it was big enough to have three dinning and sitting rooms just to entertain my friends one go. They never showed no emotion and accepted our predicament.
My cousin who was buried 4 days ago, her brother who is C.Priest deliberately came with her sisters after the burial, pretended that they were held in traffic but their keen interest in this funeral of my cousin was to inquire about the future ownership of the house neat Jubilee post.This disgraceful culture is nation wide and it is a losing battle and we need the Colonials to come back and put it right.
By the way Sudath,When we parked our car on the remote road close to your home and a bit away from the Kidney ward to see the person who died recently, last September before we took flight to London, two cops came and slapped a parking ticket on my friends car that was parked on the road side with no restrictions.
This kind of corruption is going to divide our country between the taxpayers and the hangers on like in Zimbabwe,Kenya and now in South Africa.
Global warming and terrorism is a disguise for developed nations to intervene which I think is good like in 1815.
As always in a hurry and no time to go over this, so sorry.