TNA would and should join the government

This government and Mahinda Rajapakshe are here to stay. Tamils in North East are sick of politics and those who are not that disgusted to go and vote in the election day are choosing TNA as their preferred representation. We have to live with those two facts.

Government is desperate for a 2/3 majority in the parliament so they would not have to go against the constitution to make sure president Mahinda Rajapakshe can continue after his second term (Yes all the bigwigs of SLFP who are dreaming of becoming the SLFP leader and president of the country or at least the Prime minister after Mahinda take note of that). Even with the inevitable landslide win that is just around the corner for the government it is not likely to receive a 2/3 majority. So as of now Basil must be hatching the next plan on how to achieve that 2/3 majority. What I suspect is that the plan will be a three staged one.

1.) Use all force, both legal and illegal to get as much seats as possible.

2.) Direct any UNP pm's who can be wooed to the government side with either money, blackmailing or perks to contest under the UNP led front and then cross over after the elections.

3.) Since it is unlikey to gain a 2/3 majority even after those try to get TNA to contest under the government because seats of North East are crucial.

I think TNA contesting with the government is a good thing for several reasons. First this hate mongering politics should stop. TNA should try to align with main stream politics of Sri Lanka. With the mighty propaganda machine of the government there is no chance for any one other than the government to side with TNA. The moment TNA side with any other major party, the government would start it's fear mongering campaigns. For national conciliation best thing is government and TNA to join hands.

Next thing is for those who are willing to look at the truth in eye to understand that Mahinda is also just another politician. That he too would join with anyone just like Fonseka, Ranil or any other main stream politician. That opposition been traitors and government consisting of patriots is just another propaganda stunt to instill fear and suspicion in peoples mind. This could be less important for many but not to me. Until the public is able to read the politician that rule them correctly they would always be fooled.

But those who are so desperate not to see the nudity of the rulers would come up with various theories mostly parroting those that would be originated in government media. They would argue that TNA joining Mahinda is a complete different thing than TNA joining Fonseka.

As much as I like national conciliation I am delighted with opportunities for the public to understand the true landscape of politics too. So I support TNA joining the government.

Sad but it looks like government would rig the polls

Our good friend at kottu VIC says Mahinda would win and on 27th the opposition would blame on election malpractices for the defeat. Well that is likely but also what is going around suggests that the Government is desperate(it is not confident to the level of it's supporters like VIC, SittingNut, etc) and is prepared to win this by even hook or by crook.

There was a serious incident where a navy lorry had been caught transporting ballot boxes and government finally succeeding in releasing it. Have a look at this article on Lanka Truth(there are videos as well).

I dread for what is happening under the hoods.

who will vote for Mahinda

1) Corruption cronies who are receiving direct and indirect financial gains through political appointments, contracts and pure theft. eg Mervin Silva, Somarathna Dissanayake, Sajin vas Gunawardana

2) Strict nationalists who think Fonseka is a true nationalist but don't like his political allegiances. ex Prof Nalin de Silva

3) Sinhalese racists who hate Tamils(most of this category live abroad) ex- Prof Nalin de silva is good here as well

4) Faithful Buddhists who think Mahinda is very religious and that religion and governance should be closely linked

5) Those who want to prove that they are part of the true Sri Lankan identity. ex Jackson Anthony, Probably Sitting Nut

6) Middle class who hates Ranil's Colombo 7 associations.

7) Stringent SLFP supporters

8) Those who are leftist and doesn't believe in full open economy

9) Those who believe Mahinda to be the lesser evil of the two

10) Unsuspecting people who were caught by the fear mongering campaign of the government

Hoping with statistics

I hope Sarath Fonseka would win the presidential election that would be held in 26th, two days from today. These two days are crucial. Although campaigning should have ended by 12 pm yesterday government media would continue to campaign for current president for these two days as well.

Fonseka has a real chance of winning this race. Those who pretend to know the probable mandate of the public is only counting on the past provincial council election results. Provincial council results are not effective enough to be concerned with because most of opposition supporters didn't vote because they didn't want to be in loosing side and political landscape has changed dramatically following Fonsekas entry as the common candidate, specially in the last few weeks.

I would try to analyze previous presidential election results and try to come into a conclusion about the possible outcome this time around.

Following are statistics of 2005 in millions

Votes of Mahinda 4.8
Votes of Ranil 4.7

JVP votes went to Mahinda 0.4
JVP votes that would go to Mahinda this time around because of Wimal's split and discontent about their current political allegiances 0.1(25%)

After change of JVP votes

Fonseka 5.0
Mahinda 4.5

UNP votes that would be cast to Mahinda this time 0.4(which is 8%)
SLFP votes that would be cast to Fonseka 0.1(whic is only 2%)

standing after vote changes between the camps

Mahinda 4.8
Fonseka 4.7

North votes that were not casted previous time 0.5(This is a rough guess, not sure about number of votes and not sure they would go and vote in high numbers or how many would go to other candidates)

New Northern vote split between two
Fonseka 0.33 (66% of votes)
Mahinda 0.17

After northern votes
Fonseka 5.03 (50.3%)
Mahinda 4.97 (49.7%)

Which deliveres Fonseka a slight lead against Mahinda.

I was biased towards a fonseka win during the calculations, I changed my mind against some statistics when it looked like Mahinda would lead Fonseka. But I gave Mahinda more advantage when calculating, like in JVP vote split where I gave 25% split for Mahinda and in vote changes between UNP and SLFP i gave 8% unp vote changes against only 2% of SLFP vote change.

So people if you want change over more of the same keep that hope.

Time to take a stand against UNP and SLFP

It was my firm belief that if Sri Lanka is to progress in an unprecedented way it would be led by either one of the two main political parties of Sri Lanka, UNP or SLFP. A visionary leader taking hold of one of the parties, reforming it and leading a social and economical revolution. Among those two UNP was my best bet because of its pro market economic policies and more liberal outlook.

The dream was this in spite of both UNP and SLFP been unsuccessful for 60 years of independence, been extremely corrupt and undemocratic for more than 40 years, taking turns in screwing us and most importantly with no visible visionary leader for some time to come.

The government was extremely popular for the only reason of successful military campaign against the rebel tigers. Mahinda looked like he would be reelected with a landslide. Mahinda went for the presidential elections 2 years earlier because he was much less confident of his ability to take post war Sri Lanka forward than his stringent of supporters.

Then came Sarath Fonseka as the common presidential candidate. The man who had the guts to oppose moves to take down army camps in Ranil's peace initiatives even when the Army commander at that time kept silent had the guts to challenge the ever so popular president. For some one like me who was looking for any viable opposition candidate to cast a protest vote for the bad governance, who is not afraid to be politically incorrect, delighted to see the patriot-traitor divide been diluted Fonseka looked like a gift. Not for the hope of defeating Rajapakshe but to pressurize him who was on a popular wave because of inability of the opposition than his abilities. To prevent him winning with a landslide and taking hold of the country more.

But things came to change. I think Rajapakshe is still leading Fonseka but not by much. But a wind of change is blowing. Rajapakshe's popularity is decreasing by every passing day.Landslide victory is out of the equation already. Fonseka supporters are speaking out louder than their rivals. Rajapakshe campaign is reduced to using government media in Goebbels style and the corrupt artists(why these artists are labeled as corrupt would be another post). Fonseka rallies are attended by crowds seen never before in recent times while Rajapakshe campaign is reduced to transporting their supporters from all around the island through cheaply hired CTB buses(One more case for bad governance). If the inevitable dirty tricks and conspiracy theories of the government doesn't hold in the few days to come Fonseka has a real good chance of coming up with the surprise win of Sri Lankas election history.

This situation has presented us, the public of Sri Lanka with once in a life time chance. The first real, not only non main stream but also non partisan candidate is having a real chance of winning a presidential election. We have the ability to sent the message to both main political parties that we have been fooled for too long now, that we would not go on silenty about the 60 years of unsuccessful rule and that our dreams and hopes are high as Namal Rajpakshes and all their children.

Obviously the first step in that movement should be to defeat president Rajapakshe on 26th. If Rajapakshe gets defeated SLFP would crumble in general election due in 2010. With SLFP been delivered the knockout punch next in line is UNP. Like some government supporters I too believe that UNP doesn't deserve power right now. Ranil is clinging to leadership undemocratically, their attitude on the military campaign was discouraging and how they reacted to bad governance and corruption was not that satisfactory. The punch in the face for the UNP could be delivered in the general election. If Fonseka wins, it looks like UNP and JVP would go alone in the general election. If we can vote about atleast 30 JVP'ers into the parliament and with Fonseka in presidency, UNP would find themselves in a helpless situation with no real power to abuse where they would have to work hard to stop their votes been eroded to JVP. I see no other real chance of doing this. If not this time it will always be either SLFP or UNP screwing us turn by turn.

So if there is anyone still undecided about whom to vote on the 26th I would like to kindly request you to consider voting for Fonseka. Each and everyone of us is not a Fonseka and Fonsekas probably come once in the history of a country.