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LTTE:
the ultimate victor The Commissioner of Elections indeed raised some eyebrows on Friday when he not only publicly asked the incoming President for a personal favour but overruled an Opposition objection over the polling in the North. He told the UNP's lawyers that he had no 'evidence' to annul the poll in the North and East. That, in effect, gives a clean sheet to the LTTE who created a situation that is common knowledge, that they prevented the Tamils from exercising their franchise -- something they wanted to do in appreciation of Mr. Wickremesinghe for bringing to an end -- at least in their lives, the civil war that had engulfed them for 20 long and agonising years. Now, the UNP will be forced to go by way of an election petition; call witnesses and lead 'evidence' in what will be a long drawn-out legal tangle in search of justice before the Supreme Court. Until then, Mahinda Rajapakse is President. It's a fait accompli now. To him goes the credit for fighting against many odds, and successfully communicating his vision to the people. Victory and defeat apart, both the front-runners in this election, Mr. Rajapakse and Mr. Wickremesinghe, must be congratulated for the honourable manner in which they ran their campaigns, a departure from the vituperative politics of the recent past and for ensuring a non-violent election. The
two main candidates are relatively decent politicians, their only
blemish being to survive the hottest fires of the turbulent politics
of Sri Lanka. This is not to say that Mr. Rajapakse is President of only one half of the country. He is President of the Republic of Sri Lanka to all intents and purposes, and it is now his duty to embrace the other half who did not vote for him. He will need to make them feel that they too are part and parcel of the efforts towards national reconciliation and development. There will be moves by some of those who jumped onto Mr. Rajapakse's bandwagon to marginalise the vanquished. But like Mr. Rajapakse became the rallying force of the nationalistic elements, he must now reach beyond the campaign trail and look to the future of this country and of all its citizens, whichever community or religion they belong to. He must know when he looks at the voting patterns that the minorities - both race-wise and religion-wise, by and large, did not vote for him. He cannot be the Head of half a State. In the final analysis, it was the LTTE that managed to grab the attention in this election as well. Its machinations must be an eye-opener for the new President. The JVP-PA combine successfully drummed into the majority, the bogey that Mr. Wickremesinghe -- their opponent -- had a secret deal with the rebels. But
the whole nation was wrong-footed because the LTTE -- as it does
again and again -- went against the grain of conventional southern
thinking. The LTTE move not only showed that Mr. Wickremesinghe
was not the traitor he was made out to be. Instead, that the LTTE
feared him, felt he was "untrustworthy" as far as they
were concerned and opted to ensure that Mr. Rajapakse would be President.
That fact alone speaks for itself. As
President Rajapakse enjoys the fruits of victory, however pyrrhic
a victory it may be, there must be a point of departure from his
immediate predecessor for whom the opposition was anathema and had
to be hounded at every turn. The
onus is now on President Rajapakse to ensure that the southern polity
does not remain divided and fighting each other while the enemies
of the State prosper through that very division. |
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