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Friday 7 November 2014

The politics of Presidential elections


The opposition is still searching for the common candidate and it is clear that high commissioners and ambassadors of western countries are also involved in the exploration. The common candidate is needed to defeat Mahinda Rajapakse who is not liked by the western countries to say the least. The tacticians in the opposition seem to work on the hypotheses that even a common candidate is unable to win the Presidential elections on the first count and hence to reduce the vote of Mahinda Rajapakse a subsidiary common candidate has to be found to win at least a fraction of the Sinhala Buddhist vote. The opposition wants a second count, meaning counting of preferential vote, in order to implement their “nonagatha” plans.

The Mangala, Ravi,  Kiriella, Wijedasa Rajapakse (MRKW) team of the UNP is against the candidature of Ranil Wickremesinghe as the common candidate. The foursome do not see eye to eye but they are against the candidature of the latter as they know that it will pave the way for Sajith Premadasa to become the leader of the UNP. As Ranil Wickremesinghe is bound to lose the Presidential elections with or without the subsidiary common candidate his days as the leader of the UNP are numbered if he contests.

Ranil Wickremesinghe, the man who has an understanding of Sinhala Buddhist Chinthanaya vis a vis Judaic Christian Chinthanaya does not have the heart to be associated with the former Chinthanaya. He is resented by the majority of the Sinhala Buddhists for signing the treacherous ceasefire agreement with Prabhakaran, and for being too much associated with the western conservatives and liberals. One may think that the liberals and the conservatives are two different species but as far as the majority of the Sinhala Buddhists are concerned there is no difference between them. Both factions subscribe to the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya, a fact that the majority of Sinhala Buddhists grasp by intuition.

MRKW team does not want to be in the UNP under Sajith Premadasa as the leader and they would like to see Ranil Wickremesinghe continuing to be at the helm of the party. Thus they want somebody other than Ranil Wickremesinghe to be the common Presidential candidate whom they think would win the Presidential elections. Their main effort is to field Chandrika Kumaratunga as the common candidate but if they go by Sarath Silva’s argument, which they have endorsed, then Chandrika Kumaratunga has been already disqualified. In any event Chandrika Kumaratunga is not the candidate to win the Presidential elections and the opposition and the western countries have got their calculations wrong. With a Sinhala vote comprising 75% of the population Mahinda Rajapakse is bound to get 55% of the valid vote as he is assured of some Tamil and Muslim votes as well. No candidate would be able to reduce this vote and subsidiary common candidate would only expose the fact that the westerners are behind him.

Chandrika Kumaratunga’s two terms as the President expired before the eighteenth amendment and Sarath Silva has a point if he says that the former has become disqualified. In the case of Mahinda Rajapakse, the eighteenth amendment became law during his second term and as it is he was not disqualified to contest a third time before the amendment was passed. Mahinda Rajapakse’s second term as the President has not expired as he has two  more years to continue as the President. After four years since he became the President for the second time he can express his desire to hold Presidential elections, at which time what is operative is the eighteenth amendment.

MRKW team perhaps without Wijedasa Rajapakse wants the thirteenth amendment implemented completely with police and land powers devolved to the Provincial Councils. Even Ranil Wickremesinghe has declared that the UNP would implement the thirteenth amendment fully implying that police and land powers would be devolved to the Provincial Councils. It is the Northern Province provincial council, and not the others, that wants the police and land powers and it is nothing but a demand of Tamil racism.

The Presidential elections will determine whether the thirteenth amendment would be implemented totally or partially. It is the politics behind the Presidential elections. The western countries would oppose Mahinda Rajapakse as it was under his political leadership that the LTTE, or Tamil terrorism was defeated. However   Tamil racism is not dead as it is supported by the western countries through the dispersed Tamils in those countries. The TNA is only the mouthpiece of Tamil racism and they are being manipulated by the western countries and the dispersed Tamils. The so called diaspora is supposed to mean the dispersed Tamils, with the Biblical word drawing the sympathy of the western Judaic Christian culture towards Tamil racism.

The west encourages the Sri Lankan government to use the word diaspora to describe the dispersed Tamils for two reasons. Firstly it is a cover up for the western countries who are working against the Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapakse with the ultimate aim of producing the latter before a so called international jury after removing him from the post of President of the country. The western countries, especially England, that created and nurtured Tamil racism hide behind the dispersed Tamils to promote Tamil racism against not only the government of Sri Lanka but the Sinhala people themselves.

Secondly the dispersed Tamils are not an organisation as such and there are no office bearers. Any attack on the dispersed Tamils is not focused and the advantage of that is for Tamil racism. It is not difficult to defeat Tamil racism as well, the way we defeated Tamil terrorism but we have to get our act together. We have to be clear in our concepts and be open in attacking the western countries for maintaining Tamil racism. The opposition will never do that and it is hoped that Mahinda Rajapakse in his term will defeat Tamil racism as well. If the first term defeated Tamil terrorism, the second term consolidated that defeat then the third term will see the defeat of Tamil racism with a correct domestic policy on development and a foreign policy on identifying the enemy and calling a spade, a spade.

The subsidiary common candidate would be either Ven. Maduluwawe Sobhitha Thera or Ven. Athureliye Rathana Thera with the main function being splitting the Sinhala Buddhist vote. It is unfortunate that the JHU, at least a faction of it, is determined to leave the government without understanding the politics of the Presidential elections. The government may not have fulfilled all the expectations during the second term of Mahinda Rajapakse as the President but it was a period of consolidation of the defeat of Tamil terrorism.


The JHU, should not be a party to splitting the Sinhala Buddhist vote and should concentrate on the victory of Mahinda Rajapakse so that he could defeat Tamil racism in his third term. It is not the time for parochial politics and if the JHU is interested in preserving the unitary state and protecting the rights of mainly the Sinhala Buddhists, then they have no alternative but to support Mahinda Rajapakse. If they resort to any other alternative they will only be successful in winning the wrath of the vast majority of Sinhala Buddhists, thus guaranteeing their exit from active politics. 


Nalin De Silva

07-11-2014