Demagoguery, rumour-mongering boomeranged

A manifest attempt to upstage a President with near ecstatic popularity by demagoguery and baseless rumour-mongering boomeranged. The asinine ruse to play fast and loose with truth by whimsical gossip started to haemorrhage. The quirky hearsay about orchards and luxury high-rises has turned into laughable and perishable gossip.

Vivid memories of the victorious battle to protect the country’s sovereignty by reversing efforts of those with supine CRA mentality cohabitating with Tiger war-lordism are still fresh. It is irrevocably etched in the country’s history. A bunch of strange bed-fellows trying to demonise that victorious record would not suceed.

Front burner issues

The issues are on the front burner now. The foremost debating point continued to be the decision to field a candidate on the basis of battle field credentials alone. What ensued since then was a frontal attack on the country’s victorious war policy with alleged unsubstantiated digs at the Defence Secretary. Such attempts to demify the armed forces would be cataclysmic according to all indications.

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That wedge issue failed to gain traction due to the despicable nature of the charges and the cavalier disregard for armed forces’ reputation embodied in that exercise. Charges and retorts flying like poisoned darts failed miserably to evoke the intended surge of resentment boiling over into anger against the government. The voters are craving for a relatable social consciousness in the campaign in contrast to such maligning caricatures.

Manifestoes will take center stage

Sri Lanka voters are ready to have their first taste of the political issues based on Mahinda Chintanaya 2 and the UNP’s Anagatha Abiyogaya or any other manifesto that will surface. That would enable the voters to make decisions that directly affect their own well-being. Here they tend to move closer to being rationally motivated actors that most communications experts paint them to be based on their studies.

The versatile Sri Lankan voters are beginning to compare the options before them quite seriously. How could the country continue to pursue the peace dividend won so hardly after a long struggle? Are there serious enough grounds for changing course? How could political stewardship be viewed? Can the Opposition match the claims with a concerted alternative line of action delineating policies on the development of national resources, agriculture, industry, education and fiscal management etc.

The vibes the electorate got from the first three weeks of campaigning were rather sketchy. The common candidate starting embryonically ground up had to hasten his preparation from a military to political stance, almost like an extreme make-over. The dilemma faced by the challenger, understandably, was the need to look invincible without being unconvincing. Even a semblance of a cavalier attitude or headstrong rashness seemed precipitously counter-productive.

Creeping duality

One key pointer emerging as the final three weeks of campaigning begin is how the important aspects of governance needed to get woven into the campaign issues. Duality creeping into unmanageable proportions arising from divergent profiles of the UNP and the JVP seemed probable. UNP’s attachment to laisser-faire economics and its pro-western stance contrasted sharply with JVP’s ideologically-driven nuances on some issues, which remained seemingly under assessed.

Such coalescing among dissimilar ideologues often tends to bring about a menagerie of wildly incongruent themes and protagonists, as if divinely plucked from different historical eras and encapsulated under one common candidature. That contrasted sharply with an existing incumbency with an assessable period of governance the electorate could easily evaluate.

The so-called super-glue that held the Opposition coalition together was the leadership search for a new found candidate who could match a near insuperable incumbent. Invincibility sought was overwhelmingly crucial and came at the expense of well thought-out policy nuances and political apprenticeship.

Sri Lanka is entering a period of coherence, unfettered by classic balance-of-power politics that raged for decades. The post-war realities would dictate a sobering assessment of the country’s needs. The candidate of choice must necessary meet the challenges of the time. No whimsical plunge into the unknown would warrant such a state of affairs.

Sacrosanct leadership claim

Any overtly sacrosanct claim to lead the country on the basis of a grandiose personality alone would usually call for a microscopic review as the electorate dissects the magnitude of the tasks a president is saddled with. Single-issue politics would rarely ring in a major paradigm shift. No amount of bellicose posturing would provide the logical precursor for or assessment of the leadership potential. The electorate would eventually get the opportunity to evaluate all dubious claims. That is what the campaign is all about.

The country’s voters are by no means sequestered in ivory towers. Political reality is very much their morning cup of tea. They can separate pre-existing ideological beliefs versus empirical evidence when it comes to making political decisions. They are fully capable of evaluating relevance or the irrationality of rivalling claims. Any seemingly desperate and unscrupulous deviations from issues would not persuade the voters according to most observers.

Rabble rousing

Finally, the length to with which the campaign had been dragged through a series of unfounded charges of corruption is unworthy of the high esteem the Sri Lankans have placed on the electoral process. Faked-up charges are being concocted with a vengeance by rabble rousers. There has not been a single instance of criminal wrong doing or impropriety involving the President that the country is aware.

The judicial system has never even been apprised of such acts or semblances of misconduct, the only place such charges, if any, should land in. Muck raking would not fit that.

Vicious rumour-mongering made by some are a slur on the country, a reflection of downright political bankruptcy akin to damnable sadism. Some of that stemmed from the recently concluded terror war that caused a major cataclysm among the antagonists with an axe to grind. The money expended by the despondent LTTE diaspora on destabilising Sri Lanka is immense. Their avenging desire is humongous. The parasitic back-feeders thriving on those are also innumerable. The electorate is well aware of that.

The first three weeks of campaigning produced a state of entropy due to frenzied and unsubstantiated charges of the vilest depth imaginable. Chaos and erratic randomness abound in that effort. It could be said with certainty that the slander tactics would damage those making them and not those at the receiving end.

Sri Lanka is on the verge of a major economic take-off into unchartered territory. We are in an era in which unprecedented globalization and economic interdependence are the crucial axioms. Nanotechnology, robotic warfare, the “infosphere” and geo-engineering solutions to climate change coexist in a world with unprecedented potential for growth. Sri Lankans would begin a new decade of development within a few weeks time.