{"id":35826,"date":"2014-12-07T15:06:38","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T20:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=35826"},"modified":"2014-12-07T15:22:30","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T20:22:30","slug":"fielding-maithripala-as-common-candidate-instead-of-ranil-to-challenge-mahinda-was-a-huge-mistake-being-felt-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=35826","title":{"rendered":"Fielding Maithripala as Common Candidate Instead of Ranil to Challenge Mahinda was a Huge Mistake being felt Already"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

C.A.Chandraprema<\/strong><\/p>\n

The signing of the joint opposition MOU at the open air theatre in the Viharamahadevi Park last Monday was a damp squib. In normal circumstances, if a presidential election has been announced and the leader of the UNP was contesting that election, and it was known to the public that the UNP presidential candidate will be signing an MOU with other political parties in Town Hall, the whole area would have been a sea of heads and traffic would have come to a standstill.<\/p>\n

Yet when the common candidate signed the MOU with several political parties and up to 35-40 other organizations, the open air theatre was not even full. And even the apathetic and indifferent looking crowd that was present was there only because the UNP leader was present. If not for Ranil\u2019s presence, the only people there would have been the signatories! Clearly that is not an auspicious start.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After the signing of the common opposition MOU, the first public meeting promoting the common candidate was held at the Uyanwatte stadium in Matara. Even that was hardly successful in comparison to a usual UNP presidential rally. The UNP leader addressed this meeting, but like the MOU signing ceremony this meeting too did not draw large crowds. At this meeting, RW was just a speaker. The interesting thing is that Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe are not going around the country together as the Presidential candidate and his designated \u2018prime ministerial candidate\u2019 should. <\/p>\n

One would have thought that all meetings of the common opposition should have had the photograph of Sirisena in one corner of the stage with the caption \u2018Janapathi apekshaka\u2019 and RW\u2019s photograph in the other corner with the caption \u2018Agamethi apekshaka\u2019. In such an event perhaps there would have been greater enthusiasm among UNP voters. But RW speaks at these meetings as just one of many speakers.<\/p>\n

In fact Ranil and Chandrika appear to be getting the same prominence at these meetings of the common opposition candidate, which is certainly not going to do anything to reassure the UNP voter. One of the reasons why CBK gets such prominence is obviously due to the media focusing on her for scandal value. But this prominence may also be due to the very real influence that CBK appears to be wielding in the common opposition campaign.<\/p>\n

News coming down the grapevine indicates that CBK has virtually taken over the campaign for the common candidate and even appointed her own coordinators at the district and electorate level. There are of course, some practical reasons for this. Even in the best of circumstances at a presidential election, the candidate has to look after himself even if he is the leader of a political party. The parliamentarians in a political party will not exert themselves for a presidential election the way they would to get themselves re-elected at a parliamentary election. Everybody puts one\u2019s personal self interest first.<\/p>\n

Given this situation, the presidential candidate has to look after his own interest without relying completely on the parliamentarians in his party. At the very least, the presidential candidate should have some mechanism of ensuring that the necessary work is done at the ground level. So this may be what CBK has been doing. But even in the best of circumstances, this causes friction within the camp. Even within a political party, the local politicians resent being supervised by election coordinators from outside. <\/p>\n

Now in a situation where Sirisena does not have a political party and is dependent on the UNP, appointing coordinators from outside will only fuel the resentment of ground level UNP politicians. Despite this, there is no alternative to appointing campaign coordinators from above because if money is distributed to UNP organizers to do the work, they may simply stash it away for their own parliamentary election!<\/p>\n

Nobody in the UNP is really interested in this presidential election and even Ranil himself is interested only in the parliamentary election that will follow, so the probability of organizers stashing away money for their own purposes is that much greater. But if no money is distributed to the UNP organizers and their involvement is minimized, the common candidate project will be courting disaster. Such signs are already apparent. The reason for the lack luster MOU signing ceremony in Town Hall could probably be because nobody in the UNP is prepared to spend even a cent on the common candidate given the fact that a parliamentary election would be due soon.<\/p>\n

Apart from these organizational factors, another reason for the rather lacklustre and muted campaign is the lack of campaign slogans that would fire the imagination or motivate the man on the street. The MOU that was signed by the common opposition on December 1, concentrates on four factors, of which three have no relevance at all to the man on the street. The abolishing of the executive presidency, the abolishing of the 18th Amendment to the constitution and introducing a hybrid electoral system are not topics designed to attract the attention of the ordinary voter. <\/p>\n

The issue of the cost of living which has been taken as the fourth matter is however certainly relevant to the ordinary masses. But here too the opposition would be at a disadvantage because nobody really believes that the cost of living can be brought down by changing governments.<\/p>\n

Another serious disadvantage that the opposition is having with regard to the campaign is the personality of the common candidate. Seniority in a political party alone will not make someone suitable as a presidential candidate. Maithripala Sirisena was never a key figure in any SLFP led government, the way S.B.Dissanayke and Mangala Samaraweera were in Chandrika\u2019s government. You can\u2019t expect a back row figure to transmogrify into a national leader overnight. <\/p>\n

The stark contrast between Mahinda Rajapaksa and his main challenger can hardly be lost the voter \u2013 which is another reason for the rather muted presidential campaign. <\/p>\n

Those who have promoted the common candidate by now probably realize that they have made a bad mistake and have probably set the opposition back by another ten years by not allowing the UNP leader to come forward.<\/em><\/p>\n

Courtesy:Sunday Island<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By C.A.Chandraprema The signing of the joint opposition MOU at the open air theatre in the Viharamahadevi Park last Monday was a damp squib. In normal circumstances, if a presidential election has been announced and the leader of the UNP was contesting that election, and it was known to the public that the UNP presidential …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Fielding Maithripala as Common Candidate Instead of Ranil to Challenge Mahinda was a Huge Mistake being felt Already’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35826"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35827,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35826\/revisions\/35827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}