Acceptance of defeatism with grace

Dr. MATHU H. LIYANAGE

Defeatism has to be accepted whether in politics, sports or personal encounters with grace.

The resounding victory at the polls by President Mahinda Rajapaksa over his main challenger with a majority of 1,842,749 (17.8 percent) clearly shows that the majority of the people supported him and so elected him as their leader for the second term of Presidency to lead the country to a better and prosperous future built on peace, unity and co-operation.

To the unbiased and clear thinking citizen, it looks silly or crazy, if I may use that term, to say or believe that the election result was rigged when the majority is over 1.8 million, and not by a handful of votes when such a narrow margin could be contested, or the votes recounted with the possibility of a reversal of success. But it is certainly not so in this historic case of winning by a majority of over one million votes.

The irony of this case is that the main challenger was single headed and not supported by a political party of his own but by a group of political parties who were once archenemies and who held strong, conflicting ideologies and views opposed to each other.

Political edifice

It was simply a mixture of cement and more sand made to build a political edifice vulnerable to collapse sooner or later. Most of the voters with a vision thought it as a mirage to chase and, contrary to the expectations of the interested few, it crumbled down even before the building operations could start.

Election meetings

False intelligence reports, inability to read the pulse of the people correctly because of the crowds that flocked to election meetings to hear their policies, the cross-overs and support extended at the final stages of the election by a few disgruntled elites heightened the hopes built in the air that never materialized.

Besides allegations of election result rigging, there have been reports of unproved corruption against the government by certain groups as a means of saving face against the crushing defeat at the polls. Looking back into the history of the recent past, there have been many elections where opposing political parties and their leaders took up the results gracefully and went on with their personal and political lives without fuss and confusion or making wild statements to mislead the masses.

The present situation is understandable because the main challenger has no political party of his own to fall back on and to fight future elections as its leader. There are divisions - political, social, racial and religious - in any country and they are deepened or drifted further apart by leaders of some groups to achieve their ulterior motives of gaining power using innocent masses as a tool unless they are alert and watchful to avoid such situations or pitfalls.

Post-election violence

There have also been pre and post-election violence and clashes often resulting in deaths, and this election is no exception except that the number of reported cases of violence is not that high.

International monitors and overseas countries, EU, USA, UK, Russia and India have expressed their satisfaction that the election was held in an overall peaceful environment and pledged their support to the President to lead the country to one of peace, unity and prosperity. Some countries have even cited the large turn out of voters was, in fact, a demonstration of the people to participate fully in the democratic process.

Now that the people have bestowed on the President their full confidence and pledged their support to him, it is imperative that the government should revitalize their efforts and double them up to accelerate the programs of reconstruction and development started in the North and the East and to uplift the disadvantaged groups in other parts of the country above the poverty line.

Southern Province

It is creditable that the government has, in fact, been instrumental in reducing during the last five years the poverty in the Southern Province by 50 percent - from 28 percent in 2002 to 14 percent in 2006-07, according to the World Bank.

Gemi Diriya, a poverty reduction program in rural communities, has since its inception in 2004, touched the lives of about 900,000 poverty-stricken people in more than 1,000 villages in the Southern and Sabaragamuwa provinces. The government proposes to extend the program to cover North Central and Central provinces. By 2016, it is expected to benefit seven million people in 5,000 villages.

Now that the Presidential election fever has subsided, it is up to the leaders of other political groups as well to extend their support to the government to rebuild the country without resorting to the practice of gaining prominence or scoring a political point over the government by negative criticism of members of the ruling party.