Travails of a looser : Covering up the losses in a strident tone

The Presidential election is over. There is a wide gap between the overwhelmingly won Mahinda Rajapaksa and the defeated common Opposition candidate Retired Gen. Sarath Fonseka in many respects.

The Election Commission, the statutory organization which conducted the Presidential Election to elect the Sixth President on January 26 and announced the results of the polling by 4 pm on 27th January, had officially announced the following results with full details:

Total Registered voters according the 2008 Voters Register – 14,088,500

Total Polled 10,495,451 (74.49%)

Valid votes 10393,613 (99.03%)

Rejected votes 101,838 (0.97%)

Mahinda Rajapaksa polled 6, 015934 (57.88%)

Sarath Fonseka polled 4,173, 185 (40.15%)

In the election Mahinda Rajapaksa won with a comfortable majority of 1,842,749 votes which was 17.73% polled.

Retired General Sarath Fonseka has been trounced in the election by 1,842, 749 votes which amounted to 17.73% was the difference.

The official election results clearly showed that Sarath Fonseka was rejected by the people of Sri Lanka.

The Common Opposition candidate who contested on behalf of UNP led by Ranil Wickremasinghe, JVP led by Somawansa Amarasinghe, SLFP (Mahajana Wing ) led by Mangala Samaraweera, Western Peoples Front led by Mano Ganeshan , and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress led by Rauff Hakeem, has failed even to sustain the votes which the UNP Leader Ranil Wickremasinghe polled in the Presidential election held on 17 November 2005. In that election Ranil Wickremasinghe polled 4,706, 366 votes which was 48.43 %.

Unfortunately Sarath Fondeka was unable even to sustain the votes polled by Ranil Wickremasinghe.

This very clearly indicated that people of this country has squarely rejected him. Today he is the ‘scum of the dust’, ‘the dirt of the world.’

When the election results were anounced, he did not have the magnanimity to congratulate the winner, a laid down democratic practice followed in almost all the countries.

On the contrary Fonseka rejected the results and vowed to challenge it in the courts.

In a letter to the Elections Commissioner, Fonseka accused Rajapaksa of using the state media to attack him, misappropriating public funds for his campaign and preventing displaced minority Tamils — whose support the Opposition candidate was counting on — from voting.

There is no problem whether he accepts the results or not, the election was held according to the law of the land and accepted democratic practices of the country. Sri Lanka is one country which began practicing the universal franchise for men and women since 1933.

Yes he has the right to challenge the election results in a court. He can pretty well file an election petition in the Supreme Court of the country.

However, the desperate Sarath Fonseka has come to realize that all his previous sins have come to haunt him.

The Government has said the law would take its own course. Accordingly Police has moved to go into his previous unlawful activities of the retired general.

Already Asian Tribune has documented all the known unlawful activities of the former Army Commander. It is learnt that police has started its investigation. Already police has arrested more than two dozens of Army Commandos who have deserted the army and were in the employ of Sarath Fonseka during the Presidential election.

Once the news of the Army commando deserters’ arrest came to the public knowledge shivers started to grip Sarath Fonseka and he became desperate. Subsequently, in his latest outburst it is reported that he has warned he will expose government secrets should anything happen to him and demanded that the government stop harassing him.

The former Army Commander said that he has filed detailed documents in which he has listed malpractices of government officials who have been harassing him since he decided to run for President.

Earlier a Colombo datelined Reuter report said Sri Lanka's losing presidential candidate on Saturday vowed to protests against what he said was his ‘stolen victory’ and accused the government of removing his personal security as part of an "indirect assassination attempt".

General Sarath Fonseka lost by more than 1.8 million votes in the last Tuesday's presidential election to incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa, in a poll that observers generally praised as well-run despite a violent campaign period in which five people were killed.

"The (public) has the right to protest and they will do that. Protests are already coming," Fonseka told reporters on Saturday. "I have become a political threat to them as I am the people's president. People elected me and they robbed it from me."

It was unfortunate that Sarath Fonseka was not even a registered as a voter in this country. He was even squarely defeated in his own hometown Ambalangoda, located in the Galle District.

In Ambalangoda, Mahinda Rajapaksa polled 33,488 votes which was 62.79% of the total votes polled and Sarath Fonseka polled 19,191 which was only 35.98 % of the total votes polled.

The man who did not have a vote and the man who was rejected by his own people in Ambalangoda was reported to have ‘vowed protests against what he said was his stolen victory and accused the government of removing his personal security as part of an "indirect assassination attempt".

It is the Joke of the year that he claimed himself as “I am the people's president. People elected me and they robbed it from me." Ha ha .. Haa .

- Asian Tribune -