If the Rajapaksa administration wanted to mislead and confuse the mainstream opposition and lead it to an electoral dead-end, it could hardly do better than the opposition has itself done, and done unto itself. The main Opposition candidate remains Ranil Wickremesinghe who has no rural resonance. As Mervyn de Silva wrote, “the road to Temple Trees runs through the paddy fields”. Meanwhile there is the project of a common opposition candidate on the single issue platform of abolishing the executive presidency. A common opposition candidate is a good idea, but the
abolitionof the executive presidency –as opposed to its structural reform through the reintroduction of the 17
th amendment– as the single issue platform, is bound to collapse under the common candidate the moment the campaign moves to the rural areas where the majority of voters (who are Sinhala Buddhist) live. It is revealing that the only UNP front liner who has any resonance among such voters was not in the front row of the recent Opposition in-gathering at New Town Hall.
If the Rajapaksa administration wanted to mislead and confuse the mainstream opposition and lead it to an electoral dead-end, it could hardly do better than the opposition has itself done, and done unto itself. The main Opposition candidate remains Ranil Wickremesinghe who has no rural resonance. As Mervyn de Silva wrote, “the road to Temple Trees runs through the paddy fields”. Meanwhile there is the project of a common opposition candidate on the single issue platform of abolishing the executive presidency. A common opposition candidate is a good idea, but the abolitionof the executive presidency –as opposed to its structural reform through the reintroduction of the 17th amendment– as the single issue platform, is bound to collapse under the common candidate the moment the campaign moves to the rural areas where the majority of voters (who are Sinhala Buddhist) live. It is revealing that the only UNP front liner who has any resonance among such voters was not in the front row of the recent Opposition in-gathering at New Town Hall.