| by Rifai
( January 5, 2015, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Democracy is all about people’s free will to choose their political leader. It is all about people’s choice and power. People are the foundation of democratic communities. If Mahinda is rejected by people he should be ready to leave his presidency with human dignity and respect as we have seen all other political leaders in the world. Indeed we have seen our former presidents evacuated the office of presidency with respect and dignity. Yet, Mahinda seems that he wants to stay on power until he dies or someone in his family inherits him. That was the crafty plan of Mahinda. Yet, people have rejected him and people want to bring back the democratic values into Sri Lanka once again. Yet, Mahinda and his supporters do not see like that. In order cling into power Mahinda supporters have been unleashing violence across the country. They think that through violence they could win this election and yet, it will backfire on them soon. This is an utter wrong miscalculation. You cannot bully people in this modern world.
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All election forecasts tell us that Maithri will win this election overwhelmingly with a landslide victory. People in north want openly says that they want to see a political change in Sri Lanka and people in South are eager to see a change in politics in Sri Lanka.
People have been intimidated and threated in this election in very part of the country. Opposition party members have intimidated the supporters of Maithri all over the country. Sometime supporters of Maithri have been attacked and physically injured. They use the bullying tactics to obstruct people coming to Maithri’s meetings. Yet, Mahinda supporters failed to realise this was an utter failure and mind sets of losing party. The more they intimidate the more support Maithri will get. People will cast their protest votes in this situation. By these types of action and behaviours Mahinda will lose more votes. This will create a wrong perception in the minds of people. If you cannot win the hearts and minds of people how could you will win the votes of people? You cannot force people to vote for you rather you have to convince people to vote for you and yet, actions and behaviours of some Mahinda supporters have been bad. So how could they win votes? I think that these people have done great damage for Mahinda by their actions and attitudes. These attacks on Maithri supporters would have won thousands of sympathy votes for Maithri.
It has been reported that more than 900 election related violent incidents have been taken place in recent days. Post –and pre-election related violence has dramatically increased in recent times. Sometime post-election related violent acts are more revengeful. Victorious people have a habit of revenging the defeated party members. This takes place in many forms and ways. Sometimes, soon after the election result is declared, the members of party who won the election attack the properties and houses of defeated party members. Sometimes government officials of defeated party are transferred for remote areas as an act of a political revenge. This uncultured and uncivilised violence should be stopped. We are now living in this modern world of information revolution. These types of violent acts will tarnish the good name of Sri Lanka among international community. Such acts of violence do not bring any good for any one in Sri Lanka.
In this presidential election alone so far, we have seen dramatic increase in violence. It is really shame for Sri Lanka. It is reported more 90% of violent acts are perpetrated by ruling party with the support of security forces. The security forces are in delicate situations. It is difficult for them to maintain neutrality in these case. If they do not support the ruling party members they will be punished.
In some places, police and security officers could not prevent the perpetrators of violence. Today, all political meetings are video recorded by modern technical devices. So it is not difficult to collect evidence and proof. It is pathetic that political parties are bias when they deal with the perpetrators of these violence. The ruling party will never punish the perpetrators of violent acts from their party members. After all, it is in the name of president they are doing these all violence.
Yesterday, Maithri’s meeting was pelted with stone and more than 6 people are injured. This is unpreceded level of violence in this election. Many more violent incidents took place in recent time across the country. MR supporters physically attacked opposition party members. CKB meeting in Beruwala was attacked, Maithri’s meeting stage was burned down in Galle, monks from MR supporters attacked a group of monks from Maithri supporters in Polannaruwa, and artists were attacked in Kurunagale. Likewise, barbaric attacks are still continuing. Most of these attacks are being carried out by MR and co supporters. The perpetrators of these violence must be punished.
All election forecasts tell us that Maithri will win this election overwhelmingly with a landslide victory. People in north want openly says that they want to see a political change in Sri Lanka and people in South are eager to see a change in politics in Sri Lanka. I think that more 70% people in Sri Lanka are eager to see a change. It is people’s verdict on him and Mahinda should be ready to accept this people’s choice. It is not his fault his family and friends messed him around this time. He should blame himself for his heedlessness and sloppiness. His second term is full of corruption and wastage. No pterionic Lankan will accept this type of ineptitude from any leader. He should a big heart to accept defeat and leave his office with respect and dignity. In politics success and failures are unescapable. So we hope that MR will accept his fate soon.
We will see a vibrant leader soon in Sri Lanka.
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