sunday times headline reads "
opposition’s common candidate: gen. fonseka; consensus reached among unf parties; jvp support also sought". that heading will certainly sell lots of papers (good for a paper) and create false impressions (not so good) .
problem- general (who is still chief of defence staff)
has not committed.sole evidence to support the story; general has not given a straight answer when questioned by an "english daily " (which? when?). btw to be "common candidate" jvp must be in agreement not just being "sought".
(
island has more balanced and grounded story on the same issue. it is clear which paper to choose when you want real news)
commonsense would deem controversy as a bit premature; no general, no jvp, and even no election.the date for presidential election has not been set as yet and full term only ends in 2011 december.
so why would a paper owned by opposition leader's uncle positively proclaim that general fonseka not ranil wickremesinghe is the next common opposition presidential candidate on rather flimsy grounds?
i will contend
that
real reason is yet another attempt at spin by unp leader in order project some(any!) hope of winning before possible elections to revive grassroots and prevent further potential pre election defections. all spin, no (or meagre) substance. politics in sri lanka, real storyto understand this, you have to know how politics in sri lanka works and how the mind of opposition leader works.
sri lankan politics do not run on ideology (except when it comes to fringe parties)
but on patronage relationships.grassroots of a political party or a local politician works for it/him hoping for a return (jobs, contracts, protection, etc. etc.). what i am referring to here is
not general election promises to general public made in manifestos of political campaigns, but specific promises and commitments to specific individuals or groups, most of them not made public.
politician and party is expected to deliver once in power. this is also why we see lots of crossovers (almost all from opposition to government) between elections, as politicians try to get access to means of dispensing patronage. even democratic minority community parties operate on same principles (that is why they always join government if they can) .
if the party or politician fails to get power and so fail to deliver patronage his stock with grassroots decreases. decrease will accelerate with each actual and potential failure.
only way to keep grassroots committed and prevent crossovers is to create a credible hope that one will win the next election.unp nowunited national party (unp) will get walloped in the presidential election held in the near future (with the usual loser as candidate). unp must also face the possibility that
parliamentary elections (due by march 2010) will be held before presidential elections. unp facing a
walloping there as well.
they know that ppl in general know this. they know that their possible grassroots supporters know this.
a grassroots activist for unp must necessarily face a life of great personal sacrifice way in to the future with zero payback, if he remains loyal. predictably there aren't many (unp organization in
recent provincial council elections was so pathetic that main upfa candidates almost completely ignored them in some electorates and concentrated on fighting among themselves).
so ranil must create hope out of thin air to get grassroots to commit, get political donors to risk money, etc etc .that is where general comes in.
general outlookgeneral sarath fonseka who is very popular, obviously has political ambitions. and as such a very good candidate. this is a good thing.
but i would be
surprised if he commits to politics now (though it is not impossible), given the risks involved; running against a currently popular incumbent president, running with no control over ones' own campaign, losing, and ruining his chances forever; when
he can wait and win.
his best course of action is to force upfa into absorbing him with future possibility of being its presidential candidate after mahinda rajapaksa.
barring that, to remain independent and wait out mahinda's popularity and enter politics few years down in opposition side on his own terms through a party he controls instead of under a party controlled by a different person. he should be able to either gain control of unp after ranil loses again or create a different coalition and then force ranil out of unp.
either way he has a very good chance of replacing mihanda buffalo if he waits.i personally think he doing just that; waiting and elbowing to position himself in both upfa and opposition for future (rather than for an election in the near future).
i could of course be wrong, but in that case it would be the general himself who will lose in the long term.
ranil's gameon the other hand
ranil cannot wait. he has to do something now, so he is trying his best to rope in fonseka or at least create the illusion of getting him (in which his uncle's newspapers are aiding).
using fonseka (+ an absurd coalition of marxist jvp and right of center unp bc of fonseka) he hopes to get unp grassroots
to show some life and prevent crossovers before the next presidential and/or parliamentary elections will be announced.
in addition,
he probably hopes to
make mahinda rajapakse delay the elections (bc of expected more robust contest with fonseka as opposed to a walkover over ranil). buffalo is unlikely to fall for this. if he waits till end of full term, it will be for different reasons.
ranil also hopes
to spin that mihinda backed down from presidential election due to fear of losing, if only parliamentary elections are announced as they must be before march 2010.
this last is probably his main expectation. by creating the illusion that fonseka is on unp side (even if he has made no commitment) the possibility of him contesting in 2011, will be enough to give some hope of a payback for those supporting unp parliamentary candidates and for preventing some crossovers before the elections.
let me be clear,
ranil does not expect fonseka to win if he is the opposition presidential candidate.
he is just fighting for his own political survival as unp leader in case of elections. he wants to revive the unp grassroots for parliamentary elections to prevent another dismal showing, and then hope to remain in control of unp after fonseka loses (or if there is no presidential election )
that is his game. very short term and very selfish (as he has a right to be)but others have a right to realize and act based on what he is up to, in order to advance their own agendas.
resultsif fonseka falls for ranil's trap, unp will revive in the short term and get better than expected results in parliamentary elections (though not win).but as ranil expects,
general will lose the presidential election, making the general damaged goods with no political party for cover. (btw if a real possibility of sarath foseka winning emerges once election campaign gets underway, expect to see ranil's uncle and other of same ilk working against fonseka as the same ppl did against gamini dissanayake when he was the unp candidate in 1994).
ranil will remain head of unp for another six years in opposition.that is why general should wait and position himself both within upfa and outside instead of falling for the trap.
--some political commentators are fond of describing ranil as a master of political tactics but that is not supported by evidence
ranil's previous attempts at short sighted manipulation of political expectations to advance his own ambitions
were dismal failures (in 1994 and 2004) when both gamini dissanayake and chandrika kumaratunga outplayed him.
let's see whether buffalo and general follow in their footsteps.
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