My Stand on Rajapakse

It’s no secret that posts in this blog are critical of Sarath Fonseka+Mangala+JVP+UNP alliance, in the order of current campaign energy.

Am I strictly against General Fonseka? Am I a strict Mahinda “Fan”?

no and no.

But there are times when people have to take a side. I personally think that there are also times that people should get down from their pseudo-intellectual high horses and take a political stand. I think this is such a time. And I took a stand, which is to support the continuation of Rajapakse rule. This doesn’t mean that I approve of everything Rajapakse does, or that I do it on personal basis of who the ruler is.

Why I support Rajapakse is, while a crook, he still seems to me as the safest bet.

I hate to see the mustache pasted all over the Colombo, thankfully most of the cut-outs have gone down now. I get bored at seeing those artiste ads on TV and feel revulsion at seeing the “tharunyayate hetak” after every ad, which reminds me that the National Media is now used to prop-up Namal’s image as well, not just for the task of make MR win. I also think that Rajapakse brothers have pocketed a lot of public money. I think its just plain shameless how Rajapakse’s media treats Sarath Fonseka.

But is it a solution to defeat him and bring in SF/Mangala/JVP/UNP clan? There is no reason to think so. Here’s why:

First, majority of the “corruption” allegations seems to be FUD, Mud and hype. Take “helping Hambantota” for instance: That was brought in 2005; but once the prez election was over, the whole opposition forgot it, just to be brought back now. If they were honestly bothered as much as they want us to believe now, they should have done something about it in all these four years. After all, no one in the UNP was busy. They looked rather bored and lost. And what about Mangala and JVP? None of them who had no problem about Helping Hambantota in 2005 can’t have a problem about it 4 years later. This shows that the allegations are not honest but election ploys, even if they are true. Such ploys don’t mean a serious commitment from the opposition to eliminate corruption. Also, it’s no secret that Mangala Samaraweera practices Goebbels’ tactic of saying a thing many times and hoping that the people will eventually believe it as truth.

Crooks are there in both sides. SB who was one of the biggest crook in Chandrika regime was with UNP and was its national organizer until few weeks ago. No one in UNP had a problem with that. Also, Mangala was the right hand guy of Chandrika, with so many corrupt deals under her sleeve. He didn’t feel uneasy about that.

Same for violence. Ranil didn’t have any problem when SB’s sons were messing everywhere in Colombo, or when Duminda Silva molested teenagers, or JVPes got barbed wires up their asses in Batalanda, or Gonawala Sunil threw rocks at Judges. Now he points fingers. Sagala Rathnayake accused Mangala of killing a supporter of him. JVP talking about democracy is like a whore talking about virginity. Many might still remember the antics of Mangala + JVP that used threats, alleged abduction, and violence, during the election of the Speaker, just to prevent JHU from operating as an independent political party.

At this point, there are people who remind me that “those being crooks doesn’t mean that everything Rajapakse does it right”. No one said that it does. But it means that “Rajapakse is a crook, let’s kick him out” is not a valid argument. We should kick a crook out if we could find a non-crook or a lesser-crook to replace him, not because kicking MR’s butt is just good revenge.

The all-new shiny Fonseka Factor

In my opinion, mangala, UNP and JVP brought Fonseka in just because there was no one else who could challenge MR, not because they saw any potential of him as a president (and Ranil got him simply to have him defeated). What is given as his credentials are all war-credentials. But then, it was the UNP and Mangala who insulted his war credentials until he broke off with MR. This shows that the UNP or Mangala aren’t honest about this either.

It was Mahinda who gave political leadership to the war, and political leadership is what matters most, because it was done against great many odds and he had to run the country without failing it politically and economically (all the while JVP was doing its very best to bring the country to a halt with strikes). He finished the war, and he managed all the foreign pressure. He played with countries of different interests to see that we get benefited. This alone is good enough for me to judge that Rajapakse had a successful first term as President, the same way that Fonseka had a successful career as the Army Commander.

But we are electing a president, not an army commander: Is Fonseka up for the job? So far, his short track record as a politician is abysmal. He entered politics with a long list of whines about how he was wronged, is YET to present a viable plan rather than a list of daily promises (which, at today’s closure, includes promises to increase government servants’ salaries by 10,000,  to give an allowance for senior citizens, and to solve problems of people who put money in Ceylinco. He refuses to elaborate his major plan, but haphazardly promises left and right about minute things.) Then he continued to carry on the usual blunders and did even more blunders trying to fix them. So much for the political credentials.

He says he’d get tuition from the economic experts of UNP. I’d like to ask him whether he had read Ranil’s 2005 manifesto “Re-gaining Sri Lanka” cover to cover, and AT LEAST understands and remembers what’s in there, let alone approve it. If not, then it means that this is just a haphazard opportunistic alliance and Fonseka is just trying to wriggle his way out of looking like an economic idiot.

And there are unanswered allegations on his sexual misconducts, misusing Army satellite phones for family talks, favoritism and nepotism as well. So far, SF had given several conflicting answers to the latter.

If UNP and/or JVP made a democratic alliance, accepted their faults, presented a viable economic plan, then at least one could have thought that they are serious about country’s future. Current set-up only shows that they are only serious about kicking MR out AND that they don’t have a clear alternative other than just a random horse to be put into the race. This is a revenge mission. Not what I want for my country at the moment.

Sahodara Samagama

It may well be true that some of  MR’s brothers are corrupt. However, some of them had been in politics long before MR came to power, all by democratic electoral process, which is their democratic right. I don’t see why anyone should have much problem about Gota and Basil. It could have been a problem if they just came by the power of MR and didn’t do anything. Rather, they did their jobs very efficiently. The defense secretary Ranil appointed was only busy allegedly calling Pulidevan “machan” and visiting hospitalized terrorists and arranging VIP passage of war-like material to wanni. Gota was country’s most effective Def Sec. Why the fsck should I care that he is MRs brother when he does his job?

Rajapakse wasn’t only effective in finishing the war. He went on many development projects. May be Basil had a cut in them. But still, they contributed to country’s economy. For instance, MR started the desperately needed power projects, which were postponed by both Chandrika and Ranil governments, due to various political pressures. This should have prevented a possible power crisis in near future. Possibly, the gross economic benefit of this single project alone is much higher than the total money that the brothers stole from the us. If not, adding the economic benefits of finishing the war would definitely weigh the equation to Brothers’ favor. There were several other stuff that shows the MR governments ability to do what is necessary without bowing to interested parties and risking a loss of popularity, such as making the Galle road one way to reduce traffic congestion. This is usually the kind of stuff that people expect from UNP. What I have at one hand is an alleged “non-corrupt” government that does not do what the country desperately needs (either in economy or in war), and on the other hand a “corrupt” government that delivers. I’d rather have the latter.

One could say that since the war is over now, we shouldn’t count war into the equation when deciding the next president. WHY THE FSCK then bring Sarath Fonseka as the candidate when *his* economic policy is just “will ask from UNP what to do”???

In whole, the anti-MR alliance right now is haphazard, dishonest, opportunistic, gut-less, goal-less, doesn’t have any credibility, and has fielded a candidate with dubious credentials as a politician. I don’t see any reason to kick the present somewhat-efficient otherwise-crook guy out, just to elect a whole bunch of LOSER crooks.

While it’s easy to anonymously criticize famous people pretending that we are saints with impeccable characters, in politics we have to choose from what we have got. Rather than being seen as a holier-than-thou saint in a blog and issue forth hypocritical criticism from ivory towers (while bashing both sides and getting gallery cheer), I would choose the guy who I think will do best as the next president and support him. And that choice, unfortunately due to the lack of a better alternative, is Mahinda Rajapakse.