Afterthoughts of Opposition
The Opposition, that earlier acknowledged the
Presidential election free and fair, has now taken a U-turn. Its
spokespersons, one after the other, are now saying it is flawed.
Rigged, they say. Not by stuffing ballot boxes or by
impersonations, they say. In that they accept that voting has
been legitimate, fair and unhindered, in the main. They charge,
however, that counting was unfair or that there has been a fraud
at the point of computer data entry or later.
The accusation is not concrete. It’s a wild allegation with
no evidence. None of the spokespersons for the Opposition -
neither the NDF candidate Sarath Fonseka, nor the Leader of the
Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe has categorically described the
fraud. The JVP Leader Somawansa Amarasinghe has just called it
gil maal, the meaning of which only he could tell. Mangala
Samaraweera, a spokesperson for Fonseka has called it the first
ever computer election fraud in the world.
A few comments would be sufficient to dispel any doubts
regarding the authenticity of the election verdict.
First, just consider the majority. It’s a staggering 1.8
million votes. To deny victory to the opponent the fraud must
amount to rigging double that number, which amounts to 3.6
million votes. This is a task humanly impossible, given the
peaceful and incident free nature of the poll.
Next, the counting was done manually in the presence of
counting agents of polls candidates. A copy of the final result
at each counting centre was made available to the counting
agents of the principal candidates. The entire process of
counting was transparent and fool-proof. This has been the
practice throughout the Sri Lankan elections.
In case of doubt, one has only to check the hard copies of
the results at the counting centres with the results announced
officially by the Elections Commissioner. This could be done by
filing an election petition in Courts.
Thus there is also a remedy in case of doubt. Simply shouting
from platforms that the election is rigged does not hold though
it may help to persuade the gullible and the naive, both locally
and abroad to believe it.
Let us have a retrospective glance at some results. Sarath
Fonseka received more votes than Mahinda Rajapaksa in certain
polling divisions, including those in the North, East, Central
and Colombo. In some of them the majorities he received was
greater than 25,000 or 50,000. In the North the majority
exceeded 30, 40 or even 60 percentage wise.
Surely, if the elections were rigged such high majorities
were out of the question. With the low percentages polled it
would have been a comparatively easy exercise to rig the vote,
going by some early experiences, especially the District
Development Council in Jaffna during the J. R. Jayewardene era.
However, the ruling alliance has to concede defeat there. Is
that a sign of a rigged election?
It’s best for the Opposition to accept the election verdict
in humility. There is nothing to worry. Fonseka, as a novice
could take pride in the fact that he received roughly 40 percent
of the vote. This is a good base for him to proceed further,
instead wailing like a child.
What has happened is that out of political inexperience he
mistook the swing of the electorate. He imagined a swing in his
favour.
It was partly due to the high media publicity for his
campaign and the efforts of his erstwhile supporters to take the
same crowd round the rallies and put up a huge audience when he
gets up on stage. As the result showed the swing has been in the
Opposite direction. That is why President Mahinda Rajapaksa
could increase his 2005 vote by 7.59 percentage points from
50.29 to 57.88 percent.
What is tragic is that this campaign has the potential of
marring the good name of the country. Sri Lanka’s detractors are
already using it to sully the country’s image. The Asian Human
Rights Commission, a biased body with a dubious track record has
already questioned whether Sri Lanka could conduct a free and
fair poll.
The voters would soon get another chance to rebuff these
detractors and their local lackeys and fifth columnists at the
forthcoming general election. |