Mahinda Rajapksa’s Defeat – A Lessons To Politician
Dr C P Thiagarajah
Mahinda Rajapksa’s defeat in the 8 Jan 2015 polls came as a surprise to Rajapkse family. It simultaneously alerted political circles the need to be democratic and humble in politics. Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) gave a manipulated form of democracy to SriLanka that encouraged Sinhala hegemony in all walks of live be it political, administrative or judicial. MR and his coterie were caught unawares with their pants down during their electioneering campaigns. Though they sensed that the fight would be tough after the challenger Maitripala Sirisena(MS) was snatched out of MR cabinet by Madame Chandrika Bandaranaike (CB) to contest him. MR hoped to emerge as victor in the election using his Buddhist Sinhala stance and his image as Dutugemunu the II after the war of May 2009 in which nearly 150000 Tamil civilians were alleged to have been killed ignoring human rights considerations. With this game plan he never gave any political concession or made any agreements with even the Muslim community that backed him in his last government. For the same reason he kept the TNA too away totally rejecting the implementation of 13th Amendment that is in the Sri-Lankan statute book. His supporters were over confident that the communal trump card would work.
In fact his neo Nazism campaign worked in the coastal areas of Sri-Lanka and in the deep western provinces as revealed in the final election count below. One of MR campaign moments of xenophobia was circulated in many Youtube videos. This was a challenge to the Tamil Nation to gulp it and wait what would happen to them in the election. Probably a doom like Mullivaikal and the end of democracy or the vanishing of his archaic rule and a dawn of democracy and a new age of ethnic harmony.Read More
Meeting Our Demons Head-On
Jude Ratnam
9th January 2015 – End of an era
On January 9th 2015, the day the presidential election results were announced in Sri Lanka I went out for a walk around 7 p.m. It was not a declared public holiday; nevertheless the streets were completely deserted to the level of it being virtually void of any single person on the road. I was strolling about 2 Km practically alone.
As I was walking a thought occurred to me. Probably ever since the brutal war ended in the most gory manner sacrificing thousands of lives in 2009, probably this was the first day that I felt a sense of relief. I’m not too sure what to call this feeling; maybe it was relief, maybe it was delight or maybe it was even end of paranoia.
Yes probably that was what it was! A sense of relief came about because of the end of paranoia one had experienced for a very long time. Probably it was this paranoia that still made people stay inside their homes this day. Probably because people could hardly believe that it could all end so quietly. The paranoia was to such a level, that people thought that the previous regime would never let go of and that they would do anything to stay in power. The people were probably drawn too much into the myth of the ‘invincibility of theRajapaksa’ propaganda, that this day seemed too ‘shocking’ to accept that reality.Read More
