General Sarath Fonseka has announced his candidature for the forthcoming Presidential Election: the UNP, the JVP and the party called the SLFP [M] have announced their support for General Fonseka as their ‘Common Candidate’. By announcing such support, these `parties’ have clearly and unequivocally admitted that they are well aware that they have so miserably failed to win the confidence of the people, that none of their leaders or members has the ‘chance of a snow-ball in hell’ of being vested with power by the votes of the people and have therefore been reduced to finding some person who, unlike they, has won the respect and affection of the people, to put forward as a ‘front’ and to dishonestly acquire power for which they hunger, through him. The ‘front’they have chosen and who has fallen into the pathetic state of being a ‘tool’ of these political rejects is the mighty General Fonseka - a national tragedy of the highest magnitude.

Of one matter there can be no doubt whatever and that is that these decrepit political rejects who have made public proclamations of their support for General Fonseka have not an iota of respect for, or confidence in General Fonseka’s ability to give good and proper leadership to this country, but hold him in consummate contempt. This is made manifest by several moronic statements made by Ranil Wickremesinghe and his twin mouthpieces Karunanayake and Kiriella as well as by the political IDP who has sought refuge with the UNP, Samaraweera:

i) belittling the efforts of the Army and hence General Fonseka in capturing Thoppigala; [Wickremesinghe]

ii) accusing the Army and hence General Fonseka of going to `Pamankade’ [in Colombo 6] while dishonestly claiming to have gone to `Alimankada’ [Elephant Pass]; [Karunanayake]

iii) stating that any member of the bovine species [‘Ona Gonekta’] can fight a war when the only field of known expertise of General Fonseka lay in fighting `wars’; [Kiriella] and

iv) proclaiming that General Fonseka is not even fit to lead the Salvation Army!!! [Samaraweera]

None of these clowns have, as far as I am aware, retracted any of these foul statements nor tendered an apology for making them.

The fact that the clowns who uttered these outrageous statements meant every word of what they said and have not one whit of confidence in General Fonseka, but only seek to use his enormous prestige among the people to perpetrate a monumental fraud on them, is to be found in the conditions put forward by the UNP, with the acquiescence of its cohorts in this foul endeavour – for those conditions leave no room for doubt whatever that they want to deprive General Fonseka [if he is elected President] of every vestige of power and authority that goes with that post and to cause him to act as their puppet. Let us now look at some of these conditions:

a) General Fonseka must appoint Wickremesinghe caretaker Prime Minister.

Thus, they have decreed that even if General Fonseka bona fide believes that some Member of Parliament other than Wickremesinghe commands the confidence of Parliament and that the interests of the country would best be served by such person being caretaker Prime Minister, he must yet blindly appoint Wickremesinghe Prime Minister like an obedient serf of Wickremesinghe and his cohorts.

b) General Fonseka must forthwith revoke the Emergency and with it all Emergency Regulations.

Thus, they have decreed that even if General Fonseka, with his vast experience and expertise in matters pertaining to security believes that the security situation in the country is such that the dictates of prudence and the maintenance of peace and good order require the continuance of the Emergency, he must revoke it, because his political puppeteers demand it.

c) General Fonseka must forthwith appoint the ethnically based ‘so called’ ‘Independent’ Commissions in terms of the 17th Amendment and deprive himself of all powers to select and appoint persons to key positions in the government of the country.

The degree of confidence these political rejects have in General Fonseka is truly ‘touching’!!!

d) General Fonseka should appoint at least two members of the JVP and TNA to the Cabinet with important portfolios.

Thus, they have decreed that even if General Fonseka sincerely and truly believes that no Member of Parliament of either of these parties is fit for any kind of ministerial office and/or that appointing any of them to cabinet or other ministerial office would be detrimental to the interests of the country, he must yet appoint them because his ‘patrons’ have so decreed; and

e) that he should abolish the Executive Presidency within a specified time frame and render himself politically impotent.

While it is self evident that only Parliament and not the President can abolish the Executive Presidency, General Fonseka’s ‘handlers’ have, by imposing this condition said loud and clear, that they have no intention whatever of letting the mighty General exercise even the discretionary powers of a Sergeant if elected Commander in Chief!!!

The fraud the decrepit politicians like Wickremesinghe and Samaraweera etc. seek to perpetrate on the people brings to mind the pithy Sinhalese saying ‘Nangi Pennala Akka Denawa Wagay’ [‘Like showing the younger sister and giving the elder sister’]. The enormity of the fraud they seek to perpetrate on the people, however, can to my mind be better described as ‘Nangi Pennala Mahalu Aachchi Denawa Wagay’ [‘Like showing the younger sister and giving the aged grand-mother’]!!!

In these circumstances, General Fonseka, having announced his candidature has been left with two options by his ‘handlers’:

i) to become a mere ‘contractor’ for Wickremesinghe and Co. to dishonestly vest in them the governmental powers which they themselves have acknowledged the people have no intention of doing and to thereby perpetrate a fraud upon the people who trusted him; or,

ii) to accept such contract and act in wholesale breach of it and thereby prove himself to be a shameless cheat.

General Fonseka is not one, like his ostensible ‘patrons’, who, having wallowed for so long in the filth and muck that our politics has become, can exercise either option without batting an eyelid. General Fonseka however, is an officer and a gentleman, which none of them are. He, unlike them, is possessed of honour and a vast store of it at that. If General Fonseka exercises either option, he will betray not only the people but also himself, sacrifice such honour and convert the enormous respect and affection he commands among the people to wholesale contempt, ridicule and hatred.