2010 Presidential Election Records

The election held on 27th January 2010 in Sri Lanka is over now with unforgettable memories and records. This election is itself important as it is the first ever election held island wide after 30 years with the defeat of the LTTE.

Apart from that, there are number of curious records published in the media during this election and some of them are as follows.

• It is the first ever election in which a presidential candidate could win the race getting the votes more than what he got in his first election.

• It is an election that one presidential candidate could not win even his own birth place.

• It is the first ever election after which one of the presidential candidate had gone to a five star hotel with hundreds of army personnel and planned to assassinate the incumbent president.

• It is the first ever election in which the UNP supported to a common candidate without fielding their own party candidate or symbol.

• It is the first ever election in which a person who pledged the loyalty for a foreign country (Sarath Fonseka is a US green card holder) became the presidential candidate in Sri Lanka.

• It is the first ever election after which USA ambassador came to console a defeated candidate when he was trying to suicide.

• It is the first ever election in which a person who had not registered for vote became the presidential candidate requesting others to vote for him.

• It is the first ever election after which people gathered and celebrated the victory publicly island wide with sweets.

• It is the first ever election in which opposition accused the vote counting and computer processing officials for vote rigging as no frauds were recorded in voting centers.

• It is the first ever election after which a Buddhist monk was bombed and killed by JVP in the post election violence.

You are welcome to add anything else missed from the above list. Apart from that, there are several perceptions that felt to the sensible people in Sri Lanka. Some of them are as follows.

• It is one of another election which discarded the mythical notion of king making ability of TNA and JVP.

• It is an election which indicates the gratefulness /patriotism of the people of Sri Lanka than any monitory benefits.

• It is an election which once again discarded concept of ''abolishing the executive presidency'' which proved to be dangerous for terrorists or insurgents (It is not easy for JVP to launch their ''Viplavaya'' under the executive presidency)

• It is an election which gave a golden opportunity for the opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe again to consolidate his position as the UNP leader in the party.

This election has revealed several lessons which will be useful for any person who dreams of a position in a political process. Although, the democracy means that any person can become the president, prime minister or member of the parliament, that democratic process itself is not sufficient for some one to dream or fight for a responsible position in the politics.

Being a celebrity either in the silver screen, or religious path or military arena may not be an important factor in a presidential race holding country wide. Before believing any random polling studies, best way of the prediction in politics is to first understand the sense of common man interests. Therefore, any celebrated star must think a twice with a proper evaluation of the sense of the people before deciding to switch into politics and expecting sudden victories.

- Asian Tribune -