Mission impossible

By Maduranga Rathnayake

(January 06 , Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) The General’s bombshell entry to the highest race in the country, the presidential election, has been viewed and criticised by some as a plot by the UNP led JVP dominated common opposition to use and misuse the General as a pawn to topple the Rajapakse brotherhood and capture power in parliament, with the politically stagnant Wickremasinghe’s strategy of circumventing this election nicely blended with the JVP’s eternal strategy of showing off as good-Samaritan nation saving radicals undoubtedly being the genesis of this drive.

An examination of the General’s several controversial interviews so far reveals that his acceptance of this grand scheme of the common opposition is largely due to him being “retired hurt” and his deep-down vindictiveness against the Rajapakses and bolstered by the UNP-JVP promise of him being elevated to the commander-in-chief of the Republic. Wickremesinghe’s scheme of crowning himself as an executive prime minister by sucking the General’s executive powers, if elected; a leech-like, has been rejected by the JVP, though that scheme is still viable under right circumstances. The JVP has indicated in no uncertain terms that they wish to carry out the reformation in their own formula. In spite of this UNP JVP rift regarding the post election scenario, the common opposition, however, handed the General a clear-cut mission; it was at the outset of course.

During the period immediately prior to and after the nominations the General clearly appeared to be controlled by the common opposition; however as the campaign unfolds the matrix has begun to change and in fact half-way into the campaign, now we witness a total upside-down of the common opposition’s operation; in that to the detriment of the common opposition both the UNP and the JVP are now fast becoming a collective pawn of the General rather than the other-way-round as they had wished it to be.

Though the common opposition is united by their acquired antipathy to the executive presidency and the passionate hatred to the Rajapakses, the General, over the weeks, has directed the focus more on to a number of non-governance issues; issues very much attractive, particularly, to the urban and semi-urban middle class. An immediate salary hike in the public sector, a money-back guarantee to the Golden key victims; and to the Northern Province an international air port in Palalay etc. Big or small the General has something for all. Does he not know that these wonderful packages cannot be pushed forward if he is to become a non-executive president? Or is it that he has already made up mind to somehow thwart any parliamentary move to de-executive him, if elected? Or is he deceiving the public in an unprecedented scale? Or is this a solid sign of his readiness to defy the common opposition?

Those anti-Rajapakses including some Tamil forces who have sided with the General have in fact done so believing in the General and not out of any penchant to the constituents of the common opposition, thus adding a further burden on the General to be above the common opposition’s stringent guidelines.

One thing is becoming clearer that is; the more the voters rally round the General the faster the mission of the common opposition, particularly of UNP Wickramasinghe, dissolves into oblivion thus making THE mission really impossible for them.