Opposition campaign: Slipping on incoherence and emptiness

When Wimal Weerawansa quit the JVP, that party lost its most powerful communicator. His oratory had for more than a decade sustained and built a party that did not have things easy after it was decimated in the late eighties. With the raw and compelling power of his voice and his eloquence Wimal almost single-handedly turned the JVP into a veritable third force in the country’s political firmament. It is no mystery that his departure marked a turning point in that party’s fortunes and heralded its political decline, pushing it into a veritable plaything of the UNP and now Sarath Fonseka.

That parting of ways was not pretty of course. There was a lot of mud-slinging as well as cheap shots and below-the-belt punches. Both sides were guilty of doing the dirty on the other. Wimal had a comparative advantage in that he was the superior orator, a master at word-twist. He could be counted on for great one-liners. In this instance however, some of the twists were in bad taste.

Before the ‘break’, I had not known that Tilvin’s initials were ‘M.T’. Wimal revealed this. He stopped referring to the General Secretary of the JVP as ‘Tilvin’, ‘Comrade Tilvin’ or ‘Tilvin Silva’. He called him ‘M.T. Silva’. It was a cute play on sound: ‘M.T’ was heard and meant to be heard as ‘EMPTY’. I haven’t been a fan of either individual nor their party nor their politics, but in this instance if I was asked to pick one over the other, I would have gone with Wimal because he was more a nationalist than a confused Marxist. I was disappointed nevertheless when he described his former comrade as ‘empty’.

It didn’t make me switch my preferences of course but it did turn me off a little. Then something happened. Tilvin Silva began operating as though he had been reading a script especially written for him by Wimal, i.e. one that was designed to make the man put both feet in his mouth and choke over his own toe jam.

First he screamed at a rally that Sarath Fonseka would be the ‘common candidate of the opposition’. That’s ok. The problem occurred when he addressed the issue of a ‘common party symbol’. He said that Sarath Fonseka can and will use the ‘BELL’ symbol. Huge mistake. Tilvin might love his party and that’s quite understandable, but it does not follow that the people in this country, especially the UNP voter would be thrilled to vote for a ‘red’ candidate. The JVP is a party in decline. Secondly, what’s ‘common’ about the ‘bell’? It is the symbol of a registered party. It is identified with a party. There is nothing common about the ‘bell’. Tilvin slipped. Badly.

Then he came out condemning cut-outs of candidates. Absolutely spot on. Not only do cut-outs violate election laws, they constitute an eyesore and are the result of wanton acts of vandalism. President Mahinda Rajapaksa took some time to get his cut-outs cut out, but it was nevertheless a good and timely move. That Sarath Fonseka’s backers were lethargic in getting his cut-outs out cannot be blamed on his opponents. What Tilvin said was classic, though. He said that Mahinda Rajapaksa was violating election laws with his cut-outs. Yes, he was correct. Then he added that Fonseka was similarly culpable. That was a slip of tongue and brain both, for he corrected himself and said that Fonseka had committed no wrong. ‘MT = EMPTY’: I was beginning to consider this seriously.

Then Tilvin hammered the nail on the coffin carrying the mortal remains of his ‘good sense’. He said ‘Sarath Fonseka mahaththaya kiyanne horek!’ (Mr. Sarath Fonseka is a rogue!). Of course he backtracked immediately. I was wondering, though, if Tilvin ‘MT’ Silva was suffering from that timeless syndrome which we describe in Sinhala thus: kata boru kiwwath diva boru kiyanne nehe (even though the mouth lies, the tongue does not). The classic Freudian Slip.

This is the age of electronic media, of the Internet and e-mails and sophisticated communication devices. Tilvin cannot erase. He could apologise and move on of course and I am sure no one will take too much notice. That however is only if it was a ‘one-off’ thing. Repeated slips can bury the politician. Ranil Wickremesinghe lost a lot of political ground this way in 2005. What Sarath Fonseka has said about Wickremesinghe, Mangala Samaraweera and others as well as what these worthies have had to say about the former Army Commander are already haunting the campaign.

The same goes for what he is saying now about Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and the President; compared with salutation bordering on genuflection he engaged in earlier on. A lot of websites have been launched to support candidates and vilify opponents. Most of it is unadulterated mudslinging. Here's one which just juxtaposes statements and leaves the browser to judge:www.lankanewsmedia.com.

Tilvin is a seasoned politician. He knows that such slippages can cause a lot of damage to a campaign. His party has exploited such slippages on the part of political opponents, attacking them mercilessly. Therefore he cannot expect leniency from his political enemies. Such slips indicate that the perpetrator is unsure, unconvinced about his/her political positions. The mixed signals given by Fonseka and his backers indicate that their campaign is underlined by one thing: incoherence. Well, call it 'emptiness' if you like.

It is not the case that the President's campaign does not suffer from hiccups of course. But there is a difference between a slip by someone marginal to the regime, party and campaign and a buttocks-bruising fall from a key backer and by the candidate himself. Fonseka's unbelievable hatred got the better of him when he gave that infamous interview to the Sunday Leader. He slipped really badly when he said he is willing to accept money from Prabhakaran's parents (even), indicating that he had willingly moved from war hero to mercenary.

Where does all this leave Ranil, I couldn't help wondering. I remembered a slogan that the UNP used in a demonstration protesting the rising Cost of Living, especially the fuel price hike: ape gona apata honda (our cow is good for us).

The State media went to town, morphing gona with Ranil in the parodying. I told a friend, 'This gona (meaning Ranil) might have done better, what do you think?' He said, 'aththa thamai' (you are so right!). Ranil has slipped. Never like this. Never like Tilvin 'MT' Silva and certainly not like Fonseka. [email protected]