Fonseka Does It In Style On Facebook
By Munza Mushtaq
With a soaring fan base even on Facebook, Sri Lanka’s much hyped former Army Commander, General Sarath Fonseka is gathering his mass support in style, leaving no stone unturned be it on the world wide web or even in rural Sri Lanka.
The Facebook page ‘Sarath Fonseka-Next Sri Lankan President’ which was created on October 3, has become one of the most active pages and among the fastest growing pages in the social networking website with more than 15,000 fans joining the page since its very short existence.
The page saw 10,000 fans joining within just 25 days since it was created, and the fans further ballooned last week to more than 15,500 by Thursday soon after news of Fonseka’s resignation was announced on Thursday morning.
The page was set up by a group which promoted Fonseka’s candidature in a possible presidential election slated for next year.
The creators of the page who claim to be a group of ‘ordinary, loyal and patriotic Sri Lankans’ with no ties to General Fonseka, said they were creating this Facebook page seriously risking their lives due to the forces who are against Fonseka’s candidature.
“We know that we are taking a serious risk to our lives. But we believe that this is the time we should come forward to appeal to a real hero and a man who has proven his loyalty to mother Lanka to become our leader and save our country from “political terrorists,” the creators of the Fonseka fan page said.
To prevent Rajapaksa family devouring Sri Lanka SF (SUN of FREEDOM) is the only answer.
And most of the Facebook fans seem be the intelligent youth of the country. The same can be said of some other social networking sites as well.
Unfortunately, it is the “not so” intelligent youth and people of this country who are in the majority, and this segment of our society does not seem to really get into their heads the dangers that the country is facing now and in the future with the workings of the current administration.
I TOTALY AGREE WITH SANDANAM,MAJORITY OF BRAVE YOUNG PEOPLE ARE NOT USED TO THIS FACE BOOK.
Sir,
Congradulation for gread dicision, we are always be with you for creat new srilanka.
Dear Sir,We hope you will be our CEO for driving Sri Lanka for success.
Before anything else, those who are really with General should form a sort of action to safeguard his life, we are afraid the same elements shot down Banazir Butto is still among us. Please take this note very carefully. Those elements have no heart other than their own.
From the frying pan to the fire?
frying pan – CBK
fire – MR
eden – SF/Ranil
Frying pan to the fire is correct.
Frying pan: is his own creation of misplaced pride communalism and ungreatfulness
Fire: He is playing with fire finding friends in Ranil and company a group of traitors of whom History speaks.
(General SF is not fit even to be the General of the salvation army, Any fool can fight a war, Tehy say they are going to Alimankada but it looks as if they are going to Pamankada so on
Saying 15,000 as being mass support is pure exaggeration typical of sensationalising journalism.
The journalist was talking on FB terms. Mahinda’s fan page has about 6,000 fans but that number has been amassing since 2005. Sarath Fonseka page now has 17,000 members in less than 1 1/2 months. Now do your mathematical comparisons and see.
Well done. We welcome General SF. But with a small note to clarify his stand regarding minorities in Sri Lanka. Because minorities such as Tamils and Muslims too Sri Lankans and General may respect them too as Sri Lankans partiotic. Everyone is wellaware of that Muslims always did not support separatism or terrorism in Sri Lanka but unitary state. Therefore General may not repeat what he said during the eelam war iv that Sri Lanka is belong to Sinhalese only. General may correct his mistake and go forward to contest presidential election and win the heart of muslims because muslim countries such as Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar might extend their fullest support to develop our mother land. Name with held with nick name
Sarath has to go a long way to prove himself a credible leader. What Sri Lanka needs is a statesman and not another nationalist leader. We had enough of them since independence.
Let him put his propositions for national cohesion, good governance and accountability. He must be magnanimous to give an apology to the Tamil civilian population who faced the wrath of the butchery of the war effort. This should be supported by a visionery message to financially compansate the victims and to engage them in the socia-economic upliftment by stamping out extremism and racism of the southern rabids who are few but are the determinant factors in the politics in Sri Lanka. Tamil extremisim is the product of this.
GREAT NEWS SIR, WE NEED A CLEAN PARLIMENT CORRUPTION LESS
TO LIVE IN HARMONY WITH ALL FAITHS LIKE OUR OLD DAYS IN 60s DONT
BELEIVE JVP. JVP IS THE ONE RUINED OUR BEAUTIFUL SRILANKA.
Dear Sir,
Please please please safeguard our patriot hero from Mahinda Sathan
The problem is, to be a successful leader/ politician you will have to compromise some of your values, some experts would go as far to say that, to succeed in politics you need to have a “psychopathic personality”.
I’m not sure if Mr Fonseka is this person.
Sri Lanka’s dire need of the time is a leadership with a clear vision and good statesmanship above political expediency. This has been absent for the last sixty years. Will Sarath Fonseka deliver this? Or will the country’s turmoil continue?
To All concerned, Why all this “kalabala”. This is typical of Sri Lanka. We hasten to jump into the bandwagon the moment we see someone challenging the incumbent president without going into any details or analysing what the challenger has to offer the country. Why just change for the sake of changing.
Have the masses studied what Gen Sarath Fonseka has to offer with regards to a New Vision for Sri Lanka, communal harmony, security for all nationals irrespective of religion or creed?? What are his Millenium Goals ??? How is he going to unite all Sri Lankans and forge a common identity and integrate the Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, Malays and all other minority communities and win their “hearts and minds”??? Is he capable of winning over all the minority communities and thus dismantling the mistrusts created over the years>
WE are yet to see the General’s views on all these issues and more !!!!!!
And we would also like to have his views on his much publicised statement “that Sri Lanka is ONLY for the Sinhalese”" We are not digging the rubble, but we just want to be REALIST and we just want REALSTIC answers.
And it is our fervent hope that the Sri Lankan masses do not just carried away with mere slogans; like “YES WE CAN” Be patient and study the man and he deserves your vote; it is FREEDOM. We would like to see General Sarath Fonseka metamorphising as SON OF FREEDOM( SF) for ALL SRI LANKANS and NOT just only to one community. For the moment we would like to wait and see. We do also salute our Great patriotic son of Sri Lanla – President Mahinda Rajapakse – MAHA RAJ ( MR) for rooting out the evil of terrorism from our soil> !!!!!
Deshapriya
We are sick and tired of all the Nationalist Leaders we have had so far.
We also fed up with all the Cambridge and Oxford and Harvard educated politicians; The likes of Athulathmudali for example who did “SWEET NOTHING” for Education when he was the Minister of Education. We are also fed up with the “Walauwa Hamus” the likes of Bandaranaikes and his daughter Chandrika for they messed up our motherland. Today many of our friends and family have domiciled themselves in UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Canada etc due to the petty minded politicos who has “Screwed” our motherland.
All Sri Lankans(Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, Malays etc) pray that a TRUE SON OF THE SOIL should rise as a TRUE STATESMAN to put SRI LANKA back on the track> Can Gen Sarath Fonseka fit into this role as a TRUE STATESMAN ??? or Is he going to be another politico just meddle in politics and Create chaos and Mayhem and thus start a great EXODUS of all the intellectuals from our motherland ????
General Fonseka has to answer all the above questions and more before he can ever ask for a VOTE. This time around all lankans will be casting their ballot based only on the following points:
1)PEACE FOR ALL
2)JUSTICE FOR ALL
3)FREEDOM FOR ALL
Do we have such a Leader and Statesman in our midst???
The “teardrop” Island Nation of Sri Lanka is in dire need of this GREAT STATESMAN.
Deshapriya
Majeed, I do partly agree with you. But Deshapriya summarized it all for what is happening in the country. The lack of political will that has contributed to the anarchy that has become a mainstay in Sri Lanka. If lucky, we may have a States(wo)man or many of them. But what can they achieve when society itself has lost their trust, discipline, integrity and has deviated from being an honor society. Just look at the pathetic leaders we have produced in the last 50 years. Whether they were from Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Sandhurst or Sorbonne, never contribute to us to take this country forward for our posterity. Having a degree from these institutions mean nothing if one can not put them into practice locally. If I may quote Konfuzious, “Knowledge without thinking is MEANINGLESS; thinking without knowledge is DANGEROUS!” Thus, we need Statesman who can think out of the box to outsmart the Super powers including India (who never wish to have a Singapore next to theirs), World Bank, ADB, IMF the EU and countless others who act in their own self interest.
BTW Majeed, let’s take a look at the the so called metamorphosis of our much loved motherland. Form “Pearl” of the Indian ocean to the “teardrop” to a “puffed condom”. What next?? We all would love to strive for her to become a diamond or sapphire if our politicians would come faceted by merit and etiquette.
This shows how detached the elite English speaking crowd from the ground realities in Sri Lanka.
15k on fb is nothing compared to the voting population of Sri Lanka.
Most of the fb users in Sri Lanka are kids who are not eligible for voting.
I have no idea how this piece is news worthy :(
I have no issues with Sarath Fonseka or the folks who created the fb group, rather the sudden support shown by Sunday Leader who is using irrelevant stats to stir the pot and show there is some momentum behind Sarath. This is not to say that Sarath does not have a following. He does. But quoting the 15,000 fb users is an insult to your readership as these stats means nothing at all.
just like the ranil won the presidency, by sirasa sms vote :)
I am still puzzled why Sarath Fonseka wants to get into politics.
1.he is a battle hardened commander.
2.It does not make him a good politician.
3.he has blood on his hands
4.In what way will he prove to all sri Lankans that he will be a better politician than the crooks we already have.
5.Is he preparing to rule by the gun the bullet and the white van syndrome.
6.Is he being made use of by the UNP?
7.is he coming forward to teach the Rajapakse brothers a lesson.
THE face book wellome MR fonaska must proved his vision . communal harmony human rights law & order freedom of media abolished of presidency . democraticy in inter national level . if agreed HE is the most suitable candidate for next presidental election.GOD BLESS.
The so called Facebook page/group ,all members are faked profile and none of them have shown their face they hidig behind some others face ,like Ranil and unp and jvp are trying to hide Behind SF
I am also a fan for the facebook page “Sarath Fonseka-Next Sri Lankan President”.
Remember, I am just a fan, not a supporter for SF. I will definitely vote for MR. For your knowledge, there is an another facebook site, “Sarath Fonseka Greatest General, Not BILLY BOY of UNP to win Election” will be the fastest growing facebook page. check it.