Why we vote for the President

By Tissa de Silva

(December 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Mahinda Rajapaksa as a very good manager selected the best in the country for the highest priority project for Sri Lanka for which he was appointed by the people of Sri Lanka as President. The war of 39 years - He coordinated all aspects of the project from keeping the people happy to sacrifice their every day needs, keeping away the pressures brought by our international interests, diplomatic actions, supply of logistics to the Defence Force and above all to maintain the enthusiasm of the mothers and fathers to send their sons and daughters to the warfront, in ever increasing numbers.

We vote for successful completion of the project in relatively short period of less than three years of a war which had divided Sri Lanka de-facto for 30 years.

Rajapaksa has removed the fear and lack of security from the minds of the people. This is a basic human right for the people. The removal of fear has been confirmed in the past eight months. This has also brought in the investment for the country in our march towards a prosperous nation. It has brought a financial boom to the investors in the share market who for many years have voted with the right wing market forces represented by the UNP. But today because of the prosperity brought to them they will vote for Mahinda Rajapaksa for a stable government.

Rajapaksa has set an example to all of us that unity of the country can be cemented by being conversant in two languages - Tamil and Sinhala.

History has shown that whenever the country was divided, foreign invasions took place. This is how we lost our independence to foreign interests and were close to it many times during the past 30 years.

Rajapaksa has commenced the economic and social integration of our people which is the greatest challenge for a united Sri Lanka. It will provide opportunities to all including engineers, scientists, medical practitioners and many skilled hands. They need not seek jobs abroad. This has been demonstrated in the past four years, even with a war in hand. People need Rajapaksa to continue this development process for the next term of presidency so that the country will achieve an economic take off which will automatically get accelerated for a prosperous Sri Lanka.

The alternative

Sarath Fonseka, has been sponsored by two opposing fractions Viz the JVP and the UNP. Not only these two political ideologies expressed by these two parties, being poles apart they have been killing one another using the young who worked for them with the illusion of a utopia.

Fonseka, if in power will find an ungovernable country. This would be an excuse for him to take over completely using the military to back him and to bow down his opponents. Commencing with the UNP and JVP, this would result in a military dictatorship as we have often found in Pakistan and Bangladesh where the military takeover is based on poor governance and corruption.

Fonseka who would find the people are opposed to his military discipline and government for which he is used to for 40 years, would seek foreign assistance to stay in power. We will lose our independence as foreign interests would exploit the land and people. We have seen this in many countries, particularly Africa and Latin America. It will happen to Sri Lanka under a government led by Fonseka with all the powers given initially by the present Constitution.

Fonseka's love for military power was shown explicitly in the days following the victory in May. He wanted to increase the strength of the Army under his control from 200,000 to 300,000. What was his intention?. Was it not to use increased military power to take over the Government and rule the people? The wisdom of Rajapaksa curtailed this, at the correct time to save our fragile democracy being meddled by many from the west. Fonseka cannot be trusted by the words he has uttered.