The heat of the presidential election is on, and we can feel it in the blogosphere as well. It’s getting heated! Lots of arguments are being shared, and lots of statements had been made. Sittingnut, Liberal Lanka, and even Lanka Cricket is having and opinion about the election. I have seen even Indi has posted a several posts related to the election. There were many more opinions on Kottu blogroll, which I can't remember now. Aim of writing this post is to get a few facts straight, before we move forward with any “presidential election” related argument on the blogosphere.
The Fact that We Cannot Deny: Are bloggers always needed to be unbiased? (Specially when the election is ahead, and we are given a chance to select a leader who will represent the ideology behind our blog posts?)
This is the funniest myth that I’ve ever seen in entire blogosphere. In fact this myth is believed only by the Sri Lankan bloggers. Bloggers are not media men. They are not journalists or reporters. Instead, bloggers are just individual citizens who voluntarily broadcast their ideas to the internet. In such a situation, isn’t it funny to be appear as “unbiased” just from the outer wrapper? Most of the bloggers commenting on my political blog posts trying themselves to be “non-aligned” to any major political party or for a leader. None of them explicitly tell “I support this candidate, or this party” . But, they are openly accusing certain politicians to be corrupt, cheaters, and not qualified enough to lead this country.
Let’s take for example the case with present president Mahinda Rajapakshe. There are dozens of bloggers on Kottu blogroll alone, who are posting day and night to convince us that “Mahinda is a dictator, Mahinda is a dick, Mahinda only cares his family, Mahinda is this, Mahinda is that, etc etc”. They are not only blogging on their blogs, but also commenting on other places. They say Mahinda’s government doesn’t allow media freedom, and violate human rights. When they are criticizing Mahinda, the implication is that they have in mind a better solution than Mahinda’s government to rule this country. A superior alternative! But how many of these people openly express their views on what is their superior alternative?
Let me guess. There can be two alternatives in broader terms. 1) To vote either UNP or JVP into power, and they will run a btter government. 2) A solution which is not known to us as of now (a military government? Making Sri Lanka a federal state of India or USA??)
So, if you are a blogger; and if you have your own opinion, which is steady like Sigiriya rock, and if you are having a backbone strong enough to stand the odds, why don’t you openly state your “superior alternative”?
We are now given the “democratic right” to elect a leader of our choice to run this country for next 6 years. If you are not happy with Mahinda, you can chose from a selection of minimum 5 other people including the great General, and the one and only Wickramabahu. So why don’t you openly say “this is what is best for this country”. What is best for this country might may be not even choosing a one out of the above-mentioned candidate. It may be another novel solution. But the fact remain, you should have a steady opinion and a strong backbone to tell your opinion.
My Stance on Mahinda Rajapakshe
I blog as a down to earth true Sri Lankan who understand the political realities of this country. Politics in Sri Lanka is not about getting the best that we want. It is about choosing best out of several bad options. That’s the reality. Under that reality, I believe Mahinda Rajapakshe is the best choice we can have in the upcoming presidential election as the leader of our country. I agree his government is corrupted. But as many of his opponents are saying, corruption is limited to few of his close family friends and his close relatives. Isn’t it better than opening the doors of corruption to everyone in the bureaucracy like during Premadasa era?
Many complain his government violates press freedom and assaulted/killed journalists. They compare Mahinda’s regime with 2 years of Ranil’s UNP government from 2002 to 2004. But how about UNP ruling from 1977 to 1994? Was there press freedom? Ok, let’s see how Ranil managed to minimize assaults on media people and killing them. It’s easy! He simply ordered all media stations to stop reporting politically sensitive news. Look back at that era. Every TV station stopped political talk shows during Ranil’s two years. Weekend newspaper columnists were writing about musical shows of UB 40, and Inner Circle. Was that press freedom?
What most people talk about Mahinda is his corruption and family dominance. But, how about the things he has done to this country. Before general Fonseka’s name was forwarded as the opposition (UNJVP) candidate, everyone accepted that the political leadership of Mahinda was the magic behind this war victory. Everybody cited example from Kobbakaduwa & Premadasa, etc, to say that even in the past we had the chance of eliminating the tigers but political leaders didn’t have the will and they didn’t backed up the army. If every one keep aside the “political jealousy” for a moment, it is an undeniable truth that Mahinda & Gota played a huge role in winning this role. Sarath Fonseka too played a massive role. He was capeable of doing that and that is why mahinda appointed him as the commander of the Army. If SF gets a credit for winning this war, Mahinda & Gota should get the credit of “giving the right place to right one”, which wasn’t the case during CBK era or Ranil era.
Apart from winning the war, Mahinda’s government managed to sustain the economy of this country despite the global economic crisis and heavy corruption by the government ministers. My point is, corruption would have been there (and worse) even if Ranil was the president. That’s a fixed fact. If we fix the “corruption” factor and compare, without any doubt Mahinda’s 4 years is the era with most value adding development projects in this country during last 30 years. If not, prove otherwise! (Prove that CBK, Ranil, Premadasa or JR did more development or with less corruption).
Given all these facts and many more (which I will reveal in the future), in the upcoming presidential election my vote will got to Mahinda Rajapakshe, and I expect he will gain a vote count in the range of 53% to 56% all the votes to win this election.
My stance about General Sarath Fonseka
As I’ve mentioned earlier in my blog, he will remain a national hero in my books no matter what. It is sad to see he is getting insuted by the government media and extremist Mahinda supporters, just because he decided to contest against Mahinda.
However, I also believe what happened to him as an “asking for trouble” situation (“Illagena kamak” in Sinhalese). As I’ve mentioned in one of my comments in a previous points, I would have been supporting Sarath Fonseka if he came into power in a military coup and throwing out Mahinda. That would have been the best way for him to come into power, and bring this country into the right track. But the path he took to fight Mahinda’s corruption is a corrupted path as well! Sarath Fonseka has tarnished his image as a potential benevolent dictator for this country, by aligning with people like Mano Ganeshan, Ranil Wickramasinghe, Rauf Hakeem, and Somawansa Amarasinghe. All of these politicians are just opportunists. They have pulled from the leg of Sarath Fonseka and Mahinda, when Mahinda and the government wanted the support of these people. Now SF has become a proxy of these same people to accomplish their dream of throwing out Mahinda and forming a government of their own, where Mano can continue with his LTTE propaganda and Hakeem can keep on arousing Muslim racism in East. Somawansa will remain the “Raja wasala Kawataya” (The role currently played by Wimal Weerawansa).
By looking at these facts, and the fundamental flaws in Fonseka campaign I mentiond in my earlier post I can conclude that Sarath Fonseka never going to be a viable solution as a president of this country in this election. I wish him all the best to gain at least 0.1% more than the votes what Ranil gained in 2005 election. But, my logic says he will be even an worst disaster than Srima Disanayake in 1994 presidential election.
Now that my stance has clearly stated, I expect some of you who read this to do the same if you have the courage.