A Vote for President Mahinda Rajapakse is a vote for progress and a united unitary Sri Lanka.

I was seated outside the house surfing the internet for latest information enjoying the welcome  warmth of the sun after months of rain, when my neighbour  the teacher  walked in complaining of a headache .  She was looking sad and depressive I proposed  a panadol.

She refused and said it is all because she is  discouraged and  disappointed. Many of her  colleagues she says are stupid and do not understand what really is at stake in this Presidential election.   She says that they  form into groups and discuss  the coming elections.  She had asked what they propose to do, and they had said in one voice they were voting for Sirisena.

She was surprised and asked them why  what is the reason.  The had said because they did not get the Rs.3000,00 increase they were promised, therefore they do  not trust the President Rajapakse.  My neighbour was flabbergasted, and had said that  it is an egoist  and not so important a reason to  vote against the President who removed terrorism and developing the country.  They had said, “ terrorism is over, now it is time to look after our personal interests”.

 I consoled her saying that  there are those who put self before the country.  They little realise that voting for the President  is to  vote for Sri Lanka,  to allow it to remain a unitary state  and  not to break it up to satisfy the Tamils  who wants the North and the Mulims who want the east.

Nevertheless, I said she should not worry as I just read in the internet  about a poll  carried out by the University of Jayawardhanapura according to which  the President  will receive 54.5 per cent of the votes and that with a margin of error between 3 and 5. That cheered her up a little but she asked to what extent can  one depend on polls ?

Just then I had a call from my niece a teacher at a Montessori  School in Colombo.  She related a  story similar to that of my neighbour the teacher with a slight difference. The teachers in the school she said want to vote for Sirisena, asked why they had said “ can’t you see how these Ministers live ? They live comfortably well, and have every thing while some  others have nothing, nothing even to eat “.

It is really disheartening.  I told her to say that under the President Rajapakse we had not heard of any one who had died of starvation. Despite all the talk about corruption, nepotism and lack of good governance the ordinary people  live better than they were before even if their living conditions may have not improved as they should be.

But it is pathetic that it is only these so called educated middle class  that cannot think beyond their  stomach  and a few more rupees in their pay packet, who are disgruntled as nothing can satisfy them. They do not know that they should be ever grateful to the President Mahinda Rajapakse who has given them peace and security with which they live happily without fear of bombs, massacres and assassinations. 

There are on the contrary the very poor who offer merit to President Mahinda Rajapakse who they say has given them peace and security above all their personal deprivations.

While I was still with my neighbour –the teacher, a man came looking for some work .   Having told him that I have nothing to give him immediately promised him some work after the election. I casually asked him to whom he may cast his vote.  He told me that he had not decided; and just then the domestic help of my brother came with my lunch.  She heard the man say that he is still not decided, and said in her own way that  she will definitely not give her vote to that chap (aththatama  mama okata mage chande denne ne). 

The man asked who ? “Sirisena” she said  and added, ” that ungrateful chap had even eaten hoppers with the President until late in the night and gone away to join the President’s enemies the following day, how can we trust such a man to be our President ? “

These are simple people but their sincere feelings come from down their heart. She told me later that her whole family and her neighbours will vote for the President. But she told me also that she did not like the speaker at  President Mahinda Rajapakse’s  meeting who said that Chandrika will have to go naked after the election.

These are excesses that speakers at the President  Mahinda Rajapskse’s meetings make carried over by their own rhetoric. I have noticed many speakers even Wimal Weerawansa attacking the common Presidential candidate of the opposition, Ranil, Chandrika and Champika Ranawaka.  Though they are  in fact “worthy” of such bitter criticism, one should know where to draw the line and tell the people of more important issues that theymay not know.

They speak less of the intervention of Western political forces against  President Mahinda Rajapakse and his government, and that these western forces are using the opposition to the President for a “regime change” in Sri Lanka.  In reality they (the West and EU lead by USA)  are the invisible hand behind Ranil and Chandrika to promote  Maitripala Sirisena as the  common Presidential Candidate to form a West friendly puppet regime in Sri Lanka.

If that had been well explained in simple language for the ordinary people to understand it would have changed many dillydallying persons to turn away from Maitripala Sirisena to vote for the President Mahinda Rajapakse.

I wanted to meet either the President or some one in-charge of the organisation of the meeting in support of the President Manhinda Rajapakse held in Kandy on the 1^st January.  But I failed in my endeavour.  I finally contacted  a man close to Lohan Ratwatte the MP for Kandy, and got the opportunity to meet him at a lunch that had been arranged for him in Madawala.   

I think he came very  hungry as he sat for lunch immediately on his arrival and made a sign for me to come and sit by his side.  I was not going to have lunch, so I told him while he was eating the importance of telling the large crowds of people coming for the meetings in support of the President, more about “foreign forces” at work against the President and his government, as very little is said about it though much is said about corruption, good governance etc.

 He admitted that it is so and asked me to write down what has to be said and give it to him or send it to him.  It was a Sunday and I could not get a printout, therefore I promised to send  it to him through his friend I know and left.

But it was too late then and the Presidents last meeting  also went off  with the usual speeches  by the speakers.

Pakiasothy Sarawanamuttu says that the army in the north will deter the people from coming to vote  in he mean time  Amnesty International and EU have issued instruction to Sri Lanka requesting that the government should allow free elections.  The NGOs and the International gangs are watchful.

Latest I heard is that some people say that we should re-elect  the President Rajapakse, as  a new government coming will only increase corruption as those who had failed to earn money from commissions and bribes  will out do what the President Rajapakse’s government is accused of having done.

Let us wish good luck and  pray for the blessings of the Triple Gem for the re-election of  our President Mahinda Rajapakse, because Sri Lanka needs  him as the President for another term, more than ever before.