Tragic political immaturity of Fonseka

General (Retd.) Sarath Fonseka, according to news reports, has acceded to the request made by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) to contest the General election from the Colombo District as the leader of the Democratic National Alliance (DNA). JVP Propaganda Secretary, Vijitha Herath will function as the General Secretary of DNA and it has chosen the ‘trophy’ as its symbol.

This decision was taken after the UNP had spurned the joint proposal made by Fonseka and the JVP to contest under the United National Front and the symbol of Swan, as they had done in the Presidential election.

Fonseka seems to be still living on cloud nine even after the Presidential election debacle. He believed the JVP story of ‘computer gilmaal’ because he was convinced that he would win the Presidential election as ‘his meetings drew massive crowds’.

Now he may have realised that there was no ‘gilmaal’ because he had not included the computer story in his election petition submitted to the Supreme Court on February 16, just a day before the expiry of 21 day time limit for a petition. However, he seems to be still in the mistaken belief that 4,173,185 votes received by him are his own votes.

In the Colombo district Fonseka polled 533,022 votes and he is in the belief that with half a million votes, he will not only top the DNA list but will also be miles ahead of UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and UPFA heavyweights Susil Premajayantha, Dinesh Gunawardena, Wimal Weerawansa, Gamini Lokuge, A H M Fowzie, Thilanga Sumathipala, Champika Ranawaka, Jeevan Kumaratunga, Duminda Silva, Bandula Gunawardane and others because the UPFA’s share (614,740 votes polled by President Rajapaksa) would be divided among many candidates.

Similarly, Fonseka thinks that the UNP votes will also be divided among Ranil Wickremasinghe, Ravi Karunanayake, Karunasena Kodituwakku, Rosy Senanayake, Dayasiri Jayasekera and others.

Seasoned politicians and political analysts are well aware that more than 75 percent of the votes Fonseka polled in Colombo are the UNP votes. The balance 25 percent are Tamil votes of Mano Ganeshan’s Western People’s Front (WPF), Sinhala youth votes of JVP and a few Muslim votes of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress of Rauf Hakeem.

The UNPers in the Colombo district will not vote for Fonseka when the Party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and others are playing the ‘Party and party symbol Elephant First’ line. The UNPers will loyally cast their votes to the elephant as they had obediently done since 1947.

There goes 75 percent of Fonseka’s vote bank in the Colombo district.

Now that Mano Ganeshan and Rauf Hakeem are in the UNP - led front, the Tamil supporters of WPF and Muslims of SLMC will vote for their own candidates.

That leaves only the JVP votes remaining for Fonseka. The JVP is also currently divided and Wimal Weerawansa will be able to wean a section of the JVP voters with his outstanding oratory.

Fonseka’s dream of becoming the Prime Minister after the February 2010 General elections is a pipe dream. But the classic tragedy is that he may not get sufficient votes in the Colombo district to get one of the 19 slots of Members of Parliament from the district.

His only hope is to get some pro-JHU voters, who voted for the JHU in the last General election and voted en bloc to President Rajapaksa at the last Presidential Election, by convincing them that the real war hero Mahinda Rajapaksa is not a candidate this time and the former Commander-in-Chief of Army should be given a chance.

- Asian Tribune -