by Rajan Philips-January 3, 2015, 5:52 pm
Mahinda Rajapaksa won the 2010 presidential election polling 58% of the votes against Sarath Fonseka’s 40%. All he needs to do to win this time is to manage the leaks from that high water mark and make sure that his share of the vote stays above the 50% mark. He won the 2005 election by a squeaker with 50.29% of the votes and a vote difference of 180,786 over Ranil Wickremesinghe. He knows a win is a win even if he manages just one vote over his third presidential rival in 10 years. The narrowest of win will be good enough for Mahinda Rajapaksa(MR) and he has the state machinery to clampdown on outcries of fraud and to start his third term under a worse cloud of controversy than he will end his second term.