Under the prevailing system of ‘democracy’ that this country’s leaders have espoused since 1931 and modified in 1972 and again in 1977, the People have spoken and delivered their verdict. President Rajapaksa’s party has won a two-thirds majority in the Southern Provincial Council elections recently concluded. The ‘Born Loser’ has been defeated once again and the self-styled revolutionaries were roundly rejected for both their record as well as their rhetoric.

The lesson to be learned from this fractious election campaign and the verdict is that the People are not morons to be manipulated by designing political leaders who take them for idiots. The ‘Born Loser’ and his party have been rejected once again (!) despite the bombastic claims made by his boot-lickers. There isn’t a single person amongst them of national leadership status and not one has even the glimmering of an idea how to solve the country’s pressing problems. The self-styled revolutionaries rant and rave, criticize and condemn and haven’t a bean of an idea either on how to transform Lanka into a ‘land flowing with milk and honey.’ And, therefore, the People have consigned the centre-right and the lunatic-left to the dung-heap as their appropriate destination.

The personal charisma of President Rajapaksa and his historic achievement of defeating the most malign terrorist organization in the world won him, very personally, the South. It should be noted that the UPFA candidates cannot boast either of their popularity or acceptance by the electorate because the UPFA lost about four per cent of its votes this time round. That, added to the number of people who simply ignored the entire election demonstrates a deep and growing disenchantment with the prevailing system. The People are simply fed-up with all the talk, the promises and pledges made and not kept, and the evidence before their eyes of both incomplete as well as abandoned ‘development’ projects that only went to fill some overfed slob’s pockets.

It would do President Rajapaksa to take a long and hard look at the figures, analyze these objectively and also find out why some candidates won whilst others lost miserably. The other message that the electorate has sent is that they will no longer waste their votes on sundry and various ‘independents’ or those who represent peculiar parties, splinter groups and individual wannabees.

The trend is clear—the People are tiring of coalition politics with its in-built weaknesses and fissiparous tendencies. They want a strong single party to run the country and that would be not an ‘alliance’ but the Sri Lanka Freedom Party under the enlightened leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa. What is noteworthy here is that those other segments of the population that were designated ‘minorities’ now look to the President to really weld Sri Lanka’s heterogeneous population into ONE great nation proud of its heritage and its multicultural diversity. He was the first leader of national stature to recognize and acknowledge that all segments are fully co-equal and that the 31 per cent that were marginalized for so long were also fully part of the fabric of national life.

He is also the first to address the worldwide Diaspora of Sri Lankans and invite them back to transform Sri Lanka—their Motherland also. His statements on these matters that once deeply divided this country has given all those segments new hope of a better future for themselves and their children and grandchildren. Above all, he has understood that 33 year’s of bloody strife was as tragic as it was counter-productive and thus, there is no dominant majority and no subservient minorities, period. He has signaled that the era of politics that played up to the unholy trinity of ‘Race, Religion, and language’ was over. We can now enjoy our multi-ethnic/lingual/religious/and cultural diversity, making it the cornerstone of our strength as the sons and daughters of Mother Lanka pull together as brothers and sisters of ONE family.

History would one day recognize that President Rajapaksa’s greatest contribution was the forging of an unassailable unity, the creation (at last!) of ONE nation—the Sri Lankan nation and that it was this realization that led him to prosecute the war against terrorism with such vigour. Above all other political leaders since 1931, he realized that the one factor that could take Sri Lanka forwards, upwards and outwards was the bond of national unity and that meant respecting the personhood, dignity, and fundamental rights of all citizens irrespective of any other consideration or factor. He also recognized that the ordinary, average, decent, law-abiding folk throughout the country, in village, town and city, had to be given their rightful place in the Sun and that politics was not to pander to elite tax-dodgers, fraudsters, white-collar criminals, drug lords and the sundry other suave and oily excrescences found in urban society.

Indeed the established system has encouraged and supported rampant bribery and corruption throughout the Private and Public Sectors, [where there are takers, there are givers, too] the NGOs and in the Community Based Organizations. Many key segments such as the Police, the Judiciary, and politicians [at all levels] are corrupt beyond measure. All of this needs to be cleaned out by a strong government led by a resolute man who can take a decision and stick with it to the bitter end. Mahinda Rajapaksa is such a man and what he needs is the unqualified endorsement of the People to give him a strong hand to clean up the stinking mess of 78 year’s of malpractice, graft, and criminality.

Despite some people’s distaste for centre-left politics, it is this brand of politics espoused by the late Herbert Sri Nissanka and his friends that has been sensitive to the real, felt needs of the People. This is not the politics of the Right nor of the Revolutionaries but a middle course that avoids extremes. The People have also seen the wisdom of such a course and have correctly rejected both those unsavoury extremes.