Nation endorses President’s governance President, a clear winner

This week, the frenzied election activity that was the hallmark of the presidential election campaign came to a rather anti-climactic end with President Mahinda Rajapaksa emerging a clear winner with nearly 58 per cent of the popular vote and his main rival, General Sarath Fonseka polling 40 per cent and conceding a majority of 1.8 million votes.The results were surprising, not because of the outcome itself but because of the margin of victory as the extremely acrimonious campaign had led to perceptions of an exceptionally close contest between the two contenders with many expecting the thinnest of majorities for the victor.
In retrospect, the results are a vindication of President Rajapaksa’s decision to call for early presidential elections which were not due until November 2011. The President, the astute politician that he is, obviously realised he could cash in on the popularity that he enjoyed in the aftermath of winning the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May last year.
As the political scenario was then, there was overall expectation that President Rajapaksa would emerge a clear winner with the other candidates being relegated to ‘also ran’ status as the main opposition parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) were in disarray due to defections from their parties towards the ruling United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA).The campaign of the UPFA received a jolt with the formation of the United National Alliance (UNA) and the entry of General Sarath Fonseka into the contest. It is no secret that this rejuvenated and high spirited opposition then began to harbour real hopes of wresting power after six years.
The presidential election results have put paid to those hopes now. The results suggest that the nation has voted with the incumbent President overwhelmingly. There may be several factors contributing to this final result.The President campaigned on a platform that encouraged the voter to endorse his decision to wage war against the LTTE to a finish, notwithstanding the fact that his main contender was the principal commander in that war. This resulted in an often bitter debate as to who was responsible for the war victory, the Commander of the Army or the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The truth is that they both played crucial and indispensible roles but the campaign turned out to be a virtual referendum on this question.
It is significant that the President made no major promises during the campaign. His manifesto was titled ‘Mahinda Chintana - Idiri Dekma’ and was merely an extension of the original Mahinda Chintana. Instead, voters were urged to repay their gratitude to the man who led them to the victory against the LTTE. Of course, the UPFA also made strenuous efforts to rebuff allegations of corruption made by the collective opposition.
If these were the main strategies of the UPFA campaign, they were helped by a variety of factors that worked against General Fonseka and his hastily cobbled together coalition. Some issues dogged their campaign from the outset and the main controversy, the ‘white flag scandal’ where General Fonseka said he was told that Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa allegedly ordered the shooting of surrendering LTTE leaders perhaps hurt them most.
The matter got out of hand when the state media and propaganda machinery cleverly converted the issue to a different perspective. The bone of contention was no longer whether the event actually occurred or not. Instead the General was portrayed as a man who was betraying his battlefield commanders for political gain and this could have hurt his standing among many prospective voters.There were other flaws in the General’s campaign that were exploited to the full by the ruling UPFA and its strategists: his lack of political experience, his verbal outbursts at political meetings and the decision of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to support him.
The latter in particular was portrayed by the government as an attempt by the collective opposition to revive the dead Tiger. This claim was absurd considering that it was General Fonseka who spearheaded the campaign to decapitate it in the first instance, but because he now had as his allies the UNP, the SLMC and Mano Ganesan led Democratic Peoples’ Liberation Front (DPLF), this claim could have struck a chord with voters.Other issues that hurt the General were a lack of a definite constitutional mechanism to implement his main campaign promise - the abolition of the executive presidency - and the UNP-JVP alliance being perceived as essentially a coalition of convenience formed to defeat the President and nothing else.
It is no secret that the state media was utilised to the hilt by the ruling party to convey their message, but the opposition was unable to counter this effectively because of financial and other constraints.As President Rajapaksa reflects on the election results, there is a factor that should bother him despite the mandate that he has received: his inability to inspire confidence in the voters of the North and East to vote for him. For all his efforts with the war, he is not being seen as their liberator. It is an issue the President and the think tanks in the government must take serious note of.
This must stem from the lack of a political settlement that redresses the concerns of the ‘minority’ communities in the aftermath of the war. Understandably, such a settlement cannot be arrived at overnight and it is only eight months since the war was concluded. However, the results from the North and East suggest that the President’s efforts since last May have been found wanting on that score.
The North and East did not effectively enter the voting equation for President Rajapaksa in the presidential election because of the convincingly substantial majorities in the South but it could be a crucial factor in the general elections that are due and the President will do well to attempt to address this apparent chink in his armour.The President requested his countrymen to ‘get to work’ the day after the elections to rebuild the nation, but he himself will have to now work towards the next item on the political agenda: The General Election. (News - the nation)