The pundits who had expected a very close finish were proved grievously wrong when President Mahinda Rajapaksa handsomely wrapped-up last week’s presidential election winning another term with a majority several times as big as that with which he squeaked home in November 2005 when the war was raging. Many people believed that Prabhakaran preventing a sizable section of the northern and Wanni electorates from voting won that election for Rajapaksa from Ranil Wickremesinghe. The LTTE leader lived to rue that day because in the view of most, had Wickremesinghe won five years ago the war would still not be over and Prabhakaran probably alive. It is generally accepted that Wickremesinghe, who engineered the Norway-brokered Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE, would have been much more pliant to western pressure to stop the onslaught that ended last May than the president who, thankfully for the country, refused to cave in.

The misreading of the trend by many analysts and diplomats could be partly attributed to their living in Colombo and reading the vibes in the effective capital of the country (remember, Sri Jayawardenapura-Kotte is the anointed administrative capital although nothing very much, high jinx in the new Parliament exempted, happens there). Colombo City voted for General Fonseka although Rajapaksa, whose real support base is in the rural heartland, took the Colombo district as he did other districts in the most of the southern and central parts of the country. The results clearly show the minorities have voted almost en bloc for the common opposition candidate not only in the north and east but also in many of the plantation areas as well as in Colombo City where many of them live. One commentator writing in this issue says that the rural peasants whose sons fought the war for country and their families overwhelmingly backed the Rajapaksa ticket choosing what Hsin Hua, the Chinese news agency called the ``war president’’ over the ``war general.’’

Although both UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and the SLMC’s Rauf Hakeem went on record soon after the election that there was no major malfeasance on the polling day last Tuesday, Fonseka who was clearly rattled by the scale of his defeat said otherwise as the results began coming in. He had smelt victory from crowds at his meetings and claimed he was leading as the counting proceeded until the final numbers left him dazed; likewise the JVP. The incumbent and his supporters, as their predecessors have done in the past, maximized the handicaps of office with blatant misuse of the state media as well as other public resources for election purposes. The police shamelessly allowed themselves to be used by those who could bestow patronage with a few officers, no doubt calculating personal advantage if there was a changing of the guard, batting for the losing side. Abuse of public property, unfortunately, becomes worse not better with succeeding elections and it is high time that the whistle is blown on such activity. It may be too much to hope that with a general election following hard on the heels of the presidential contest that game will be played differently this time round. Rajapaksa was the single runner from the government side last Tuesday while hundreds of UPFA candidates, many of them ministers, will be seeking to get themselves into parliament in the short term. Few, if any, of them will have compunctions of using official facilities for election purposes.

It is unfortunate that Fonseka has been hounded even as the counting was going on. The intimidating contingent of troops thrown round the Colombo hotel where he and aides had taken residence after the poll closed has left a very bad taste in the mouths of fair minded people. It was alleged that he was harbouring military deserters in the hotel. There is no doubt that several retired soldiers and possibly some deserters worked for his campaign, many of them on security duties. Fonseka was a high profile target until his retirement and a suicide bomber narrowly missed getting him inside army headquarters three years ago. He barely survived that attack. He had to go to court to get the security that was his due during the election campaign and that has now been withdrawn. There have been uncontradicted reports that when some members of the assigned security detail came out of the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel they were treated in a revoltingly humiliating manner. It is claimed that they had continued with Fonseka after their recall but that does not merit the treatment allegedly meted out to men who have risked their lives fighting for the country. There have been thousands of deserters during the long years of the war. Numerous amnesties discharge opportunities were offered and granted to them. Were they treated in such an ugly fashion?