Mahinda on top, Ranil hits rock bottom

The Nielsan-Sunday Times opinion poll which ranked D. S. Senanayake as the number 1 leader, President Ranasinghe Premadasa as the number 2 and President Mahinda Rajapaksa as number 3 must have come as a shocker not only to the chattering class complaining bitterly about the price rise in whisky and imported perfumes but also to the Western diplomats misguided by their NGO wiseacres writing doomsday columns in the anti-national sections of the English media. Even those sareed nit-pickers who sit in editorial or academic chairs and complain about the President not listening to the voice of the people must have been stunned when the people chose President Mahinda Rajapaksa over their media favourite Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Leader of the UNP, who hit rock bottom in the opinion polls, scoring a dismal 1% ! This damning poll confirms that, in the minds of the people, UNP stand for Useless, No-hoper's Party.

Conversely, the poll confirms that the people relate to President Rajapaksa's warm personality more than to any other political gnomes residing in Oxford or Cambridge places. Put another way, the poll indicates that the people have confidently linked their future to that of President Rajapaksa. They have not hesitated to endorse President Rajapaksa because they have pinned their hopes on him despite all the hardships faced by them in these times of war and insecurity. Whatever the critics may say about his failures in the other areas, the people are prepared to stick with him essentially because he has not betrayed their trust on the key fundamentals. They know that if he fails in his mission to restore peace, normalcy and security then it is their loss more than that of the President. So they have expressed their confidence, hope and trust by voting for him.

A telling point in this poll is the rejection of the anti-national media as a reliable guide to their thinking. In endorsing President Rajapaksa, despite multi-barrel firing daily at him, the poll reveals how far apart the media is from the people. The poll states unequivocally that it is the media mediocrities who can't hear what the people are saying. Though the media is relentlessly denigrating President Rajapaksa's campaign the people seem to be well attuned to what the President is saying and doing. It is the leader writers who can neither see nor hear what is happening in the country. If they know as much as they think they know then they will have to explain why their hero, Wickremesinghe, is nowhere near the winning post in the political race. Besides, the rejection in the polls is the latest in the string of unending defeats of Wickremesinghe. He can't even win a simple opinion poll after all the white-washing done for him by the leaders in the anti-national media.

Overall, the poll reflects the positive mood of the nation despite the bombs exploding in their neighbourhood. This is the most surprising element in the poll. They even overlook the depressing rising cost of living. When they were asked whether they were happy or unhappy to have been born in Sri Lanka, 92 per cent of the participants said they were happy to have been born here. Of those surveyed, 70 per cent said they would not migrate to another country.

Those fed by the anti-Rajapaksa media would find it equally surprising to read that 21 per cent of the participants described President Rajapaksa as the 'best living leader' for leading the country towards economic development and prosperity.

The comprehensive meaning of this statistic can be assessed only in the light of the responses to the former president Chandrika Kumaratunga (one per cent/eighth place) and Ranil Wickremesinghe (one per cent/10th place). Both seem to be competing with each other for the places at the bottom where the rejects twiddle their thumbs while President Rajapaksa is sailing with the winds at the top. The counter-productive politics of Wickremesinghe is demonstrated amply by him falling below Chandrika Kumaratunga, the pseudo-intellectual who has a marked penchant for leading herself astray.

The poll, however, must certainly be a worry to Wickremesinghe. How low can he get than this? Even without the polls saying so, it is pretty obvious that the UNP has fallen from the Himalayan heights of "DS" to the pit of Wickremesinghe which is located two points below that of even Kumaratunga. Incidentally, this poll result came after the UNP had carried out countrywide door-to-door and pola-to-pola campaigns. Besides, it was based on phone interviews which can be considered as being representative of a fair cross-section of the population considering the fact that even the "put-put" drivers have cell phones. Wickremesinghe's decline is comparable to that of Prabhakaran: both have lost their best lieutenants and are losing territory and face without any hope of recovery at the end of the day.

Wickremesinghe's plight raises a critical question for the UNPers who are sick of relying on their failed leader's horror-scope: what are the common factors that lift "DS", Premadasa and Mahinda Rajapaksa way above Wickremesinghe? The answers to this may help the UNPers to have some hope in the future if they can also change his negative and glutinous personality that lacks public appeal.

Primarily, all three winners at the poll are grass roots leaders. And you can't be a grass roots leader if you are not pragmatic. None of them relied on NGO pundits or Western diplomats to guide them. All three of them are simple, down-to-earth politicians who felt and understood the pulse of the people. All three of them have been achievers. All three of them stood for a united, multi-cultural Sri Lanka that should be the homeland of all communities. Unlike Wickremesinghe they did not promote "asymmetrical" fictions where, in the Orwellian sense, one minority would be more equal than all the others put together.

All three winners had the courage to take up challenges and guide the nation, avoiding the many pitfalls. They worked tirelessly to retain its identity and attain its potential without surrendering to those armed groups and foreigners bent on eroding the sovereignty of the nation. Of course, they had to pay the high price for having the courage to go against the Westernized, English-speaking establishment. They were vilified. "DS" was portrayed as "kallay John" - the country bumpkin who was not sophisticated enough for the Westernised elite and the so-called "golden brains" of the Marxist left.

Though he did not go beyond the junior school level at St. Thomas' College, Mt. Lavinia he had in him that charismatic (Weberian) quality of a native farmer who could sit on the throne when the mud is washed away (Robert Knox). He dismissed with contempt the superficial class theories of Marx which was in vogue in the highest academic circles long before the fall of Berlin Wall and the break-up of the oppressive Soviet Union. While the local city-based Marxists, with double doctorates, were waiting for the revolution to overthrow what they called "the semi-feudalist, semi-capitalist" Senanayake and did their utmost to obstruct his progress, "DS" not only forged ahead non-violently to win independence with consummate statesmanship but also to lay the foundations for a democratic, multi-cultural, and liberal society. This explains why the people remember him today with admiration and reverence and thrown the bright Marxist sparks of his time into the dustbins of history.

The latest opinion poll is an example of the perceptive new generation recognizing the positive achievers and discarding the negative critics.

President Premadasa too was a victim of his venomous critics who pushed him to the brink. The caste-conscious Bandaranaikes and the Ox-bridge duo, Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake - all darlings of the elitist Kurunduwatte - went all out to deny the man from Kehelwatte, his due place.

They collectively organized and led one of most vindictive campaigns against him, colluding with the meddlesome Western diplomats (headed by abominable David Gladstone, the British High Commissioner) and the foreign-funded NGOs who were only too willing to run down national leaders.

But to his everlasting credit Premadasa stood his ground and fought two of the most ruthless rebellions - one in the north and the other in the south - without undermining the democratic institutions. His go-getting style revolutionized the bovine bureaucracy. He not only took the bureaucracy to the people but even gave free money to the people to lift themselves up on his Poverty Alleviation Program. Desmond Fernando, the civil rights activist, affirmed that he is one of the few leaders who never interfered with the judiciary. The media hounds went after him like the way they are biting at the heels of the present President Mahinda Rajapaksa today. By the time the media came round to acknowledge his achievements it was too late. They paved the way for the enemies of the nation get him. They even lit crackers.

There are, unfortunately, some media twits (fortunately they are an insignificant minority) that the world moves because they write a column. Or because they run a news portal on the net. Their exaggerated notion of their own importance blinds them to the realities of the day. They fail to realize that the world has a way of running away from the media to elect/select its own heroes. Their eagerness to pose as great heroes of their time, way above the national heroes picked by the people, make them look like imbecilic critics who lack the perspicacity to either analyse or co-relate the contemporary happenings to the evolving map of the future. Some of them are so dense that even with 20-20 hindsight they cannot read the signs of the times. How many of them would have had the political nouse or the guts to back "DS" or Premadasa in their day?

President Rajapaksa is in the same boat facing the slings and arrows of a political class which is stuck (1) partly in its anti-national, alien prejudices, (2) partly because they lack the guts to fight the fight that has been forced upon the nation by the mono-ethnic extremists of the north (3) partly because of their divisive politics that has ruined the chances of finding a political consensus and (4) partly because they see no political gains to them if they allow Rajapaksa to win the war without passing it on to another generation or two. Wickremesinghe is the leader of this political class, pointing a finger at the government without realizing that four of them are pointing in his direction.

Take for instance, the passing of the Emergency Regulations in Parliament. It is the primary legal shield that helps the Security Forces to protect the people from the ruthless enemies of the nation. Wickremesinghe refuses to vote for this essential shield that protects the people but he is screaming his head off saying that his bullet-proof car has been taken away from him. This political act is a total denial of the right of the people for protection under the powers vested in the State. But Wickremesinghe is only concerned about his bullet-proof car.

What benefit is there to the nation if Wickremesinghe grins his way in a bullet-proof car watching the people fall like flies to the enemies' bullets because he failed to give them the legal protection? If by any chance he becomes the Prime Minister can he run the State tomorrow without the Emergency Regulations? You bet, the first thing he would do will be to boost his security and that of his MPs. This is why the people have no trust in him and refuse to vote for him.

He is downright immoral when he plays politics with the lives of people. He played with the lives of the people when he signed the illegal Ceasefire Agreement. He uncaringly sacrificed the lives of the people when he and his factotum, Bradman Weerakoon, authorized the Customs to release, duty free, weapons and parts of the light aircraft that were sent to the Vanni. He played with the lives of the people when he allowed the Tigers to establish bases in the east despite protests from the Chiefs of the Security Forces.

Does he have the capacity to think and care about the security of the people at all? Seeing his petty, obscene politics the people have a right to ask why should he and his "henchaiyas" be protected with the tax-payers hard-earned money when the people's right to protection under the law is denied by the Useless, No-hoper's Party?

This is not to argue that security should be denied to him. Apart from compassionate reasons, President Rajapaksa should keep him alive as long as he can because it is Wickremesinghe's leadership of the UNP that guarantees his government's victory, as seen in the latest polls. Even Prabhakaran took him for a donkey ride and refused to vote for him. Wickremesinghe is the greatest political asset available to Rajapaksa and he should be protected even with tanks, if necessary.

Ever since he took over the leadership of the UNP he has been stewing in the juices of his own making. His greatest contribution to the party has been to drive the best talent into the arms of the government. Despite the desertions of the backbenchers which have driven the party into the doldrums he seems to be happy with it because he is very suspicious of talented men in the party who makes him insecure.

Lately, however, there is reason for him to be nervous particularly with Sajith Premadasa, the most promising leader of the UNP and the maverick S. B. Dissanayake, waiting in the wings, to take his place.

To counter this hidden opposition within the UNP ranks a rather crude media manipulation has been put in place to get the UNP backbenchers and some of the anti-Wickremesinghe suspects within the party to publicly proclaim their loyalty to him. One leader writer recently cornered Sajith Premadasa and pushed him until he declared, somewhat guardedly, that he was for Wickremesinghe. Since he is biding his time for the opportune moment he has nothing to lose but say what wobbly Wickremesinghe wants to hear.

Also at a meeting held in Kandy last week one of the "yes-men" had lauded him as the man who is following the policies of D. S. Senanayake, the founding father of the nation who forged national unity. It is logical to ask, if Wickremesinghe is following "DS's" policies how come "DS" is on top and Wickremesinghe is way down, right at the bottom? As pointed out by Gamini Lokuge, his loyalty to "DS" was made abundantly clear when he refused to attend the garlanding of his statue this year - an annual act of respect paid by loyalists to their founder.

It is, indeed, sad to see Wickremesinghe, a descendant of two pioneering nationalist families, the Wijewardenes and the Senanayakes, playing the role dictated to him by self-seeking NGO manipulators like Bradman Weerakoon - a hired agent who parks himself either in the foreign-funded, anti-national ICES or Wickremesinghe's office. In a sense, Wickremesinghe can be described as a weak but good man fallen hopelessly among the enemies of the nation. If he is to make any headway in the future by winning at the polls - that, indeed, is name of the game - he has to get back to Senanayake, Premadasa and Rajapaksa traditions because there are no votes for him in the pockets of the grinning gremlins at the ICES.