{"id":40964,"date":"2015-01-21T16:30:28","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T23:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=40964"},"modified":"2015-02-01T17:08:29","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T00:08:29","slug":"in-retrospectthe-rajapaksa-defeat-is-a-reminder-that-democracy-and-autocracy-never-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/01\/21\/in-retrospectthe-rajapaksa-defeat-is-a-reminder-that-democracy-and-autocracy-never-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"In Retrospect,The Rajapaksa Defeat Is A Reminder That Democracy And Autocracy Never Mix!"},"content":{"rendered":"

LankaWeb Weekly Editorial<\/strong><\/span><\/em>
\nJan.21st 2015<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

“ You Can Fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time but never\u00a0 all the people all the time” <\/em>Abraham Lincoln…..<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0..Perhaps is an apt summation of what happened\u00a0 to former\u00a0President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Presidential election concluded recently. He is undoubtedly someone who\u00a0has done a great service to all\u00a0the people\u00a0of Sri Lanka although in so doing he has also committed certain grievous errors which proved to be harmful to himself as well as being\u00a0a heavy penalty to the Sinhala Nation which once adored\u00a0him as an air of uncertainty now hangs over the Island Nation\u00a0.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Irrespective of ethnicity,\u00a0 all the communities within this country\u00a0,\u00a0particularly those who believe in the freedoms that need to be enjoyed by all with no compromise to aspirants of secession and supporters of degenrate terrorism seemed to be dividerd in their vote. <\/span>
\nSadly though, those who\u00a0have greatly benefited by the former\u00a0President’s leadership have also\u00a0been disillussioned beyond reprieve\u00a0through his conduct and direction that led to his undoing\u00a0 which was a path towards autocracy and one intolerable in the climate of Sri Lanka today and as always.<\/span>
\n\u00a0One which carries no acollades and\u00a0 has merely transformed his image and credibilities into something dubious and in light of what is being revealed through various\u00a0plausible investigations his image is being tarnished\u00a0and depicted as\u00a0someone who despite all his accomplishments as a liberator of Sri Lanka and the rapport he had with powerful international sources which benefitted the country immensely neglected the primary needs of\u00a0 the country in post terrorist Sri Lanka despite token attempts to portray to the contrary which eventually did not sustain him..<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nHe appears to have had as a priority the carving out of a huge slice of material assets\u00a0together with\u00a0his friends and family where the hardships and sufferings\u00a0of a majority of the population( impoverished and straining their last resources towards eking out a living at best)\u00a0seemed to be of little or no consequence to his longing for power at ayt cost which is what in all probabilities the voting masses as well as a well put together coalition acheived by ousting him. Surely a “Coup de Grace” that ended his incumbency!<\/span><\/p>\n

The mood in the Nation today is one of speculation and great expectations towards the future, greater perhaps than what was portrayed during the Rajapaksa regime which all seemed to fall apart in the end where it is hoped the new administration will\u00a0 implement what is best for the country with no self centered motivation on the part of anyone where time will tell the outcome of the ignominious dumping of a once much loved President who succumbed to the viles of his alter ego that prompted him to seek power and control he was not entitled to as his legacy unfolds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the misgivings attached to his loss as a self inflicted one through neglect and one where he was totally misled by his aspiring\u00a0campaign ‘big wigs’ who paid scant attention to some of the key pointers suggesting a possible defeat~\u00a0and were already celebrating a victory that was not to be, there are\u00a0 shades of good in what the world sees as the Sri Lanka of today, one which has been transformed\u00a0 from the depths of despair linked to an insurgency of near nation destructive proportions\u00a0into what many believe is the <\/span>” Miracle of Asia” whose\u00a0 creator very definitely is Mahinda Rajapaksa and no one can take that away from him!<\/span><\/p>\n

In the aftermath of his defeat which was by no means resounding~ a margin of some 46.5 % to\u00a0 56.1% or thereabouts, there is reason to believe it could have been prevented had he taken appropriate steps\u00a0 to clean out his administrative team’s bunglings\u00a0somewhere in the middle of his second term where he was indeed riding a wave of support from many quarters and should have\u00a0corrected some of his policies which were in the end detrimental to his eventual demise. <\/span>
\nHe carried on inasmuch as the Emperor with no clothes did regardless of public and foreign opinion never believing that he would fall as he considered himself unassailable and\u00a0infallible\u00a0even as far as the soothsayers predictions which saw not his victory but doomsday!<\/span><\/p>\n

Undoubtedly \u00a0His “campaign staff” has in all probabilities done something which rang not victory bells but his political deathknell. as quoted from a recent report ~”They created an euphoria of victory. They also had more than enough money to spend and the facilities of the print and electronic media of the state sector to use and abuse with impunity. Not even the Elections Commissioner or Court orders could stop him.Without looking at the statistical reality of the vote by the Tamils (TNA), the Muslims and the upcountry Indian Estate population (even without Thondaman), Mahinda’s strategists made up their own minds that the President would win. They entertained no other views and could see, hear or speak of nothing else but certain victory.” rhetoric, actions and folly perhaps which dumped him ignominioudly on his rear with nowhere to turn to sadly in the end!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0A proud Sinhala Nation has thus lost their once patriotic and iconic leader whose image in the end became distorted to the point of non recognition and lost in the anger of the\u00a0vote that defeated him\u00a0where the misdeeds and erratic direction of\u00a0he BBS angering the Muslim voters, overtolerance of the TNA and the surge of the LTTE sympathetic \u00a0Tamil voters avowed to take revenge after their champions were de-commissioned, as well as a total neglect of the needs of the\u00a0common man who worshipped him yet watched\u00a0in despair as the opportunist regime ran amok with patronage, corruption, thuggery and false promises to restitute their grievances and their pathetic exsistences\u00a0 augmented into misery as the runaway train which the Government of Sri Lanka eventually became had a felt need to be stopped in its tracks\u00a0.<\/span><\/p>\n

What the New Regime now \u00a0has\u00a0as \u00a0immediate priorities seem insurmountable and overwhelming towards restoring global credibility in an economic\u00a0sense as well as winning ther trust of many who virtually gave up on Sri Lanka towards the latter part of the Rajapaksa Administration as the lapses were painfully visible and blatant!\u00a0<\/span>
\nAlthough there is every possibility it will make good on the lapses and huge indiscretions of the past\u00a0\u00a0 there is also the danger of leaving certain areas of vital importance open to compromise and attack translating to cautions necessary in how the TNA and Muslim leaderships are dealt with. Said with trepidation as there are those who once were willing to bargain with the security and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka in a hapless bid towards sustaining\u00a0either\u00a0their own agenda’s or simple stupidity or perhaps\u00a0both!<\/span><\/p>\n

Sad would be the day if the New Sirisena Administration unleashes the devils and enemies of Sri Lanka that were coralled and kept under control by the previous administration\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0by being overly zealous in how it appeases the world and certain sources alienated from the Sinhala Nation who wanted nothing but Regime Change! Realistically the \u00a0ungainly support it had from what many term undesirable quarters that gave their support with certain favours in mind could also prove to be the undoing of the presently euphoric Sirisena Presidency!.<\/span>
\nWhat transpired during the 2015 Presidential election however\u00a0is a classic example of the veracity of the\u00a0truism that Democracy ( or the lack thereof) and Autocracy in the end never mix!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LankaWeb Weekly Editorial Jan.21st 2015 “ You Can Fool some of the people all the time and all of the people some of the time but never\u00a0 all the people all the time” Abraham Lincoln…..\u00a0..Perhaps is an apt summation of what happened\u00a0 to former\u00a0President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Presidential election concluded recently. He is undoubtedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}