2010 Presidential Election -Genaral Lost!

MR clearly won the election. By a margin that I did not expect.

SF lost.

It is an interesting question if it was really that MR won or SF lost.

Was the election free and fair? On the election day, it was. Leading to the election, it was not.

Government media was misused to the max. The election commissioner admitted this in his statement declaring the result. Unlike in the previous elections, private media was not that bad this time.

Obviously, since I did not like what was going on in the state media, I did not watch those. However, while private media runs with their earned money, state media runs with people's tax money. So they got to be more responsible.

The general was sunk in the mud with government media, and also filled peoples minds with FUD. The whole conspiracy theories and the stuff are total bullshit. I saw posters reminding people with 89-90 era photos, before the election day. These were government sponsored, and was targeted towards generating FUD against SF. However, anyone with bit of understanding on the uprising and the chaos in 89-90, would know that it was triggered by the unbalanced power that was given to UNP in 77. Seeing these posters, the feeling that I got was that I have to be concerned about my sons lives down another 10 to 15 years. What we are doing now is to over power the rulers, like in 77. Consequences will be felt down the line.

It is a reality that SF did at least something to win the war. And GR knew the value of SF in this context. Keep the politics aside, the suicide attack on SF and the follow up developments contributed a lot on the win of war. So more than SF or MR, I believe that it is GR who made it happen. Also, it is not MR, but GR that LTTE was looking to kill at that time. More than anyone, the terror outfit knew who was more threatening.

Looking at the way that SF was attacked, it was shocking for me to see how dirty the politics were. It was amazing how people overlooked, and people were directed to overlook, the services done by SF, and MR did the whole thing to win the war. It was more shocking that it boiled down to the question of weather SF or MR won the war, and those who really fought on the ground and those who got killed in bunches, even in the last minute, were largely forgotten. What would have happened if a solder, who was in the front, in the last battle, was a candidate in the presidential election? Would or would not that person have been attacked like SF?

And what if GR ran against MR? Who would have won?

The problem with SF to start with was that he joined camps with the wrong people. JVP and UNP were bankrupt. Also, I am not sure what the whole rationale of his statement to the Sunday Leader news paper. That alone lost his campaign. SF wanted to win. And that is why he lost. If he stood genuine, out of the dirty politics, did not stand with the bankrupt opposition and stood against the obvious government corruptions, and was not afraid to loose it, standing for the truth, he would have won much better.

But the truth is, you need money to run a campaign. Presidency is a big business here. Look at the marketing budget, the money spent on the ad campaign. Who would spend money if there is no return. So if you want to run the campaign, you need money. So SF had to find some money. The best source was UNP. I do not know where the money come from - some say from foreign powers, and some say, from Colombo business community. From wherever it is, they have money. So SF had to join forces with someone to get the money. And that very thing paved the way for him to be attacked the way MR camp attacked him. So he lost.

Bottom line. SF should not have contested the polls.

However, the real problems remain. Corruption is one of the key problems that I have. Corruption at the ground level in MR camp, because the people see no risk of loosing. There are numerous examples in the village that I live in.

There is no way that MR camp will loose the general election. MR camp will fight among them for preferential votes. There will be no risk of loosing hence, no need to worry about "serving people".

Also, I see no vision, no strategy. It is like the Dehiwala sky bridge. Government "sell" it. But it is a waste of money and increase of traffic. Electronics engineers do not have jobs. They come looking for QA jobs in IT. Because the government companies have outsourced all work to Chinese companies. But I see polling ads "sell" development. And I see on Facebook, that engineering students in the campus happily voting for MR. The government should not be obliged to provide jobs to all graduates, but they should also not prevent job opportunities due to cheap outsourcing. I see Chinese faced people near construction sites - bad new for civil engineering graduates.

Politics is easy money. This also must have played a role for SF to consider running.

In the process, he lost a lot of respect from lot of people.

MR won the first election without any support from minority parties. It was the Sinhala vote that made him president. Thondaman did not support MR in 2005. This time, minorities were with MR for couple of reasons. One for bargaining. Two because SF was army commander. People associated killing with SF and winning with MR. No war can be won without killing. The one who winds the war is the war hero. Now who is the real war hero, MR or SF? This whole logic is busted.

Bargaining possibilities still remains. Minorities will use this for the max in general election. The minorities who did not support MR to win in the first place, will get a bigger pie. They did not help win the war, but will reap the benefits of MR win. Who is loosing? I did vote for MR in 2005. Thondaman took away so many votes from MR in 2005. What am I getting today? What is Thondaman not getting today? What is SF getting today? Again, who won the war? Who helped win the war? Who is getting the benefit?

The General lost! I still respect him though, irrespective of what he said and done during the election, because of the role he played in winning the war in this country.

MR won!

I am keeping my eyes open, to see if it was a people win, if there will be something bright in the future.