President Rajapaksa Coasts to Easy Victory
With results still coming in President Rajapaksa has scored heavily in key areas, proving that he remains popular in almost all of Sri Lanka’s rurality but having attracted just as many votes from urban areas too. The Moneragala district performed the best of all with 70.8% of the voters aligning themselves with Mahinda Rajapaksa. Chief Minister Sashindra Rajapaksa said he was extremely happy with the result and said that this was proof if ever it was needed, that the people have shown tenacity and gratitude for the incumbent President. The North Central Province had recorded almost as much as Moneragala, with 69%.
The President was said to be in exuberant spirits and was urging his aides and suipporters to be magnanimous in their victory towards General Fonseka and his supporters. The results of the postal vote set the trend and as the results trickled in, there was an absolutely clear indication that Rajapaksa was making steady ground from all over the island. He significantly lost Galle to General Fonseka as he did parts of Kandy, but trumped the General in his own home town of Ambalangoda by over 31,000 votes. As expected and as reported in The Sunday Leader last week, the President’s showing in Batticaloa was poor with General Fonseka scoring more than the incumbent.
The highest amount ever polled by a victor was set by President Kumaratunga in her first election with 63%. It was not expected that President Rajapaksa would score as much but there was strong analysis that the incumbent President would reach around the 55% mark – making him the second highest in the history of Presidential polls in Sri Lanka.
Earlier just as polls neared the closing time, there was the shocking revelation that General Fonseka was not registered to vote and was consequently unable to vote himself. Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickremesinghe issued a statement soon after polling closed that this election was generally free and fair.
President Rajapaksa was preparing to address the nation later in the day and was set to make a conciliatory acceptance speech in which he would call for unity amongst all parties irrespective of their ideology and for the people of the country to work in unison.
All attempts to reach General Fonseka as well as any of his key supporters like Managala Samaraweera, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Karu Jayasuriya, Ravi Karunanayaka and JVP members, failed with their mobile telephones either off or not being answered. The General and his supporters had been at the Cinnamon Lakeside until the early hours when the General had left the hotel to an undisclosed location.
Well done moda sinhala voters. you one again proved you are worthy of the title. God bless Srilanka hence forth Mahinda Rajaya.
The people of sri lanka are after all a grateful lot. They have truly shown their gratitude independent of caste, creed, race or religion. It is a conscious decision of the majority of people representing the rural community, despite all odds that needs to be respected.
I don’t think he got too much of the Tamil speaking votes.
Are you sure all of them are genuine votes?
Don’t be a racist please.
Hay Tip-Cut, Are you upset that we are finally uniting ? I am sure you would have loved if Fonseka won giving you buggers and the tigers a chance to be king-makers yet again !!!!! sorry tippy, we sold that goat.
i must add, the Muslim community is taken for a ride by Mr. Hackeem for his personal gain & it’s apperent his hatred towards MR will never end. sad thing is Muslims being part of our country for centuries and blended with Sinhalese for the good, are on the verge of demanding seperate country or autonomy state statues for them & leading themselves for the path of destruction because of this man, Hackeem. but we as true sons of nation should never left Muslims apart or let them feel they r left out from this victory.
Muslims are not divided by ethnic lines, they are hard-core UNP. Thats the fact.
ADO THAMBIYA FAZIL KARIYA THOGE GON MOLE!
I am a THAMBIYA TOO! I endorse your statement “GON MOLLE”. Yes, no better word! I too supported SF for change not based on any communal lines, but SF lost by a massive margin, and I accept the verdict as a margin of 1.842 votes cannot justify any claims of cheating and deceit.. Its always good to remind ourselves that the basic tenet of democracy is that the will of the majority prevail. The majority has voted MR into office, lets accept this decision eventhough it is hard to stomach, and move on in unity to bring prosperity to our beloved motherlad. Its time we =Sri Lankans grew up and not follow the path set by our politicians, otherwise we will be in the same it they are in. Long live Sri Lanka!
well said fazil…..
Well done FAZIL K. This statment shows us what a bloudy fool you are. Go and stand up infront of the mirror and look at you
Go to hell fazil! Who are you to say that Sinhala voters are modayas? What YOU say is what YOU are my friend!
Assalam alaikum brother Fazil.
Why don’t you go and educate them all if you are so clever. Seriously speaking, the manner you present your point in is as important as the point itself. Moreover Islam teaches us the good etiquettes of debating.
fazil.yes well done sinhala voters ….But moda muslim voters deos not understand the fact that MR lost support of the western world because of
1.He is a good friend of IRAN,LIBIYA,PALASTINE,PAKISTAN etc..
2.He did not hail the invasion of IRAQ by G.W.Bush(remember what RW has said about it)
3.Strongly support Pakistan when UK tried to remove Pakistan fron Non Align countries membership
4.If you go to Palastine you will see a street in the name of MR to pay the grattitude for him
I cant understand why these brainless fellows still marching behind pro-american hakeem and RW expecting what..?Buissness..Utter nonsense q791o9o
What this shows is that Sri Lankan voters are mature enough to sort things out and elect a person who they think will continue to carry on the stability they have achieved after a 30 years of uncertainty. People remember waiting at the idikadulla not knowing whether child who went to school would return in one peace. This man at least removed that fear from the minds of people. This election is not a guarnatee that inglorious waste, corruption and inefficiency will suddenly be a thing of the past. However, Rajapaksa is a known commodity while 300 other previous Presidents and Prime Ministers before him stood on the fence unable to make the critical decision to end the war. Would you think Bush or Obama will send negotiators to Afganistan to sit and talk to Al Queda? Therefore, albeit the allegations of corruption, nepotism (which by the way is a way of politics since 1950s and don’t tell me that Fonseka would have ended it with a military style command ‘Company: Atte…ntion!!’) incumbant’s unwaivering determination to bring a semblance of peace is reason enough for many voters to make the decision they made.
Now let’s tell the new President to be magnanymous in victory and take a stock of things he shoud change so that country can see a much better tomorrow.
I endorse your thinking. We were saved from being another Pakistan! But, we have to take the criticism into consideration while acknowledging the fact that the people have voted for Hon. Mahinda Rajapakse with a purpose. I am sure our leader would take heed of the negative comments of the general public and address them
Fonseka’s Singha Regiment BADLY need, Tiger Regiment to Survive.
TIGER REGIMENT IN DEHIWALA ZOO WITH PONNA PRABHA
I hate to be a racist but Fazil how dare you call Sinhala people modayas when you guys have bet on the wrong pig all these bloody years.
KALU EXCELLENT COMMENT!
MR has lost the support of all so called europe/American countries because of his close alli with countries like IRAN,LIBIYA,PALASTINE (infact there is a road for his name)where lot of injustice made for them by the west…But this pro-American hakeem and brainless MUSLIMS continue to support others like RW who hailed the decision to invade IRAQ ..Brainless racist hooligans ..when are you going to understand the reality…
Though opposition and its succours are so boorish and blind and without any intelligence went after donkey thinking he is stallion. True Sinhala/Buddhist voters who have compassion with their Tamil brethrn and other relegious faiths always united to save the country in a crunch time and time again. This donkey not only took the whole nation and its people for ride knowning that he does not have vote he took the poor gullible oppostion with him too. What a bitter lesson they learn in their political escapeds!
Well done Mahinda R. Let’s see you in action to reduce the prices of essential food items, fuel and transport. Please pay attention to these things now like you are doing the development in the war areas. Again well done for keeping Sri Lanka out of a de-facto military democracy with losers like Ranil Wickremesingha who could not field a challenging and appealing candidate. RANIL MUST GO sooner rather than later.
(white skin)India urges mahinda to arrest fonseka who got support of china and pakistan and Indigenous Tamileelam people.
Oh! Haven’t you learnt a lesson yet? How much were you paid to spread all these nonsense? By now you should realise Sri Lankans are not dumb to carried away by all these rumours!
SL forces surround Fonseka’s hotel
[TamilNet, Wednesday, 27 January 2010, 05:17 GMT]
Heavily armed Sri Lankan forces have surrounded Wednesday Cinnamon Lake hotel in Colombo, where opposition presidential candidate and former Sri Lanka Army General (retd) Sarath Fonseka was residing with opposition leader Ranil Wickramasinghe and JVP leader Somawanse Amarasinghe. Sarath Fonseka, who is trailing in the presidential contest against his former Commander-in-Chief Mahinda Rajapaksa was scheduled to hold a press conference Wednesday morning, but journalists were not allowed to reach the hotel and were waiting at Sri Sittampalam Gardiner Mawatte. In the meantime, Sri Lankan military spokesman Udaya Nanayakkara has alleged that Sarath Fonseka was harbouring SLA deserters inside the hotel. Military has also been deployed around media outlets in Colombo.
Tamilnet is truely concerned, so are its ardent followers!
WHO CARES FOR TAMILNET? WEB OF A DEFEATED TERRORIST GROUP WHOS LEADER KILLED LIKE ADOG
Bad government goons, cant they left poor Mangala & Ranil to have homo act in peace inside a hotel.
you only bend
Sarath won the war destroying LTTE. Now, His army may destroy HIM.
What ever the result of the Election let the New President bring back Discipline and Honour to our beloved Sri lanka. “Ape’Aanduva” destroyed it all with the Sinhala only policy, thereby leaving the Tamil speaking people at a disadvantage, and creating a division among the people of this country, leading to the arising of both the JVP and LTTE. Improvement and development of a common language of communication (obviously English) is the first priority. As a small country we CANNOT AFFORD TO BE LIKE FROGS IN A WELL and not be aware of what is happening in the rest of the world!, although it may serve some to do so.
So a word to the New President “be aware of your priorities,to enable the people of this country to prosper.” and not bicker about the petty personal issues your ‘hangers on’ are harping on about.
try to contact the Election commissioner, his whereabout is secet, no official results have been released yet
Go on spread more and more rumours! You will be well appreciated by your Western masters!!
As expected a true son of mother lanka will hold the Presidency for a second term. Sri Lankans are greatfull that the LTTE was destroyed militarily. That is why President MR is being re-elected.
SF is not a person fit for Presidency. He is an arrogant military leaders whoes method of management goes for the Army, but not to run a country. If ever anyone needs to change President MR his successor should not be SF.
For all those short sighted people who have opted for SF should look at the broader picture. MR earned the respect of the majority and has been tagged as ‘King’. SF never won the war alone. Even the peon who travels by train to work in Colombo played the role to win the war. If the masses in non-conlict areas did not care about the security in their neigbourhood the LTTE would have killed many civilians and forced the southern Sri Lankans to stop the military campaign.
So three cheers for the sensible sons and doughters of Mother Lanka who voted for President MR!!!!
LTTE is behind Mahinda to revenge Sarath; Namal and Emil’s plan worked out very well. LTTE helped Mahinda to win this time as well. Mahinda has to be SLAVE to LTTE, from now on.
Utter Rubbish!
Thats a truth
OHH FREDRICA & SUNDAY LEADER WHAT HAPPENED?? CLEAR VICTORY BY MAHINDA! GO FLY A KITE!
This is the great victory for Sri Lankan people and democracy. Let’s think about it. An army General, after retirement and having done his job he was asked to do, wants to take the power, without any experience in politics and governance. Only experience hhe has is running the army. Even that, with all the help of the political leaders in power.
Now it is time for an investigation on his conduct after the war. There is serious suspicion that he tried to split the army and cause chaos by getting some army people to revolt somehow. It is treason. He will have to face the military court and the civil court for that. It is not a bad idea to include those who are with him (UNP, TNA-mainly and JVP) into the investigation. This way the justice will be served for the crimes that they committed in the past, as well.
It is a good idea to keep the hotels where they are staying, very secured.
Congratulations to MR on his great victory is in order. He won without the support of this pesky Tamil votes. But MR, as he is, will forgive these Tamils because he is great man.
“Congratulations to MR on his great victory is in order. He won without the support of this pesky Tamil votes. But MR, as he is, will forgive these Tamils because he is great man.” A great man indeed since somehow 80% of ‘pesky’ Tamils in the North and East managed NOT to vote at all.
Now is the time to put all this election nonsense behind us and make MR Prez for life. It should be easy now to change constitution to ensure that his sons can follow after him so we can be led by a Rajapakse for ever. There is no need for further elections EVER.
MR is our saviour and his picture must be put up forever at every temple and he must ban all other religions to maintain the purity of our monks.
MR you are our king, MR you are our Father and our god.
You still don’t understand the Sri Lankan people. They are well educated and more sensible than you think. Insulting the population of Sri Lanka does not make you any intelligent or humourous but you sound so petty and stupid.
About the pesky Tamil votes: They have the president who speaks in their language whenever he visits their area. He made a speach in Tamil in UN. He makes an effort to win them. Yet, they voted according to their divisive leaders or abstained according to their dead terrorists. Yet, they complain that they are not integrated into the country. The southern voters have shown that there is no dependancy in divisive politics and no need to please anyone who does not want to be part of Sri Lanka. Welldone South!!
IDIOT the so-called “pesky” tamils could not vote because of MRs bombs!! They were scared to death. MR is not a King but has definitely Fathered several children!!!
Ofcourse, ofcourse! These peace loving Tamils never heard a bomb blast in their life before! Even for a cracker noise, they will boycott the election. Thank you for enlightening the rst of the world. Keep it up.
Stupidity exposed. Check your forehead for any lumps. If you find it do not worry, thats nothing but the normal growth of horns that rarely happens to human beast.
I only hope David’s comments are “tongue in cheek” as I would not even dream anybody in Sri Lanka to wish for such a thing.
Sorry my friend your dream was shattered. You abused and harrassed MR supporters. Now go and shove your face where the sun does not shine.
Calistus ,
if you like or not you should comments against MR till 2018.you created lots of issues
against our King .so try to change your mind to vote MR for next election.
NOW MY FRIENDS WHAT CAN I SAY? IT IS ALL MR’S FAULT THAT SF LOST! IT IS SO HARD TO SWALLOW THE TRUTH? GO AHEAD START THE “BLAME GAME”. MR IS USED TO THAT & SO ARE THE SUPPORTERS. I WISH THE COUNTRY & MR ALL THE BEST AND A NEW BEGINNING!
Reading through many comments and rebuttles its delighting that we Sri Lankans are passionate and concerned about the country and its future. But its also equally daunting to notice that the majority of those are immotional and ill thought of.
If any of us tend to think that Sri Lanka is a far away island isolated from and not in the interests of the rest of the world, then behold, it is the contrary. Its in the centre of one of the worlds pivotal maritime routes and from it you can watch the whole of Asia to mention a few things. And these things concern the main power players bothe regional and global (Please read for China and America). Who backed the illicit affair between Ranil & Co. and SF had their own motives and whoever backs MR also have their own agenda for the region.
But we poor Sri Lankans, Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim etc. continue to play pawns in the Chess game ever since the socalled independence and by the looks of it, there is no stopping anytime soon.
Democracy in Sri Lanka: new lessons add to old ones
Mahinda Rajapaksa gains a victory of big margin in the presidential elections of Sri Lanka and this has not surprised Tamil nationalist circles. The voters of Sinhala Nation have very clearly endorsed a regime accused of genocide and war crimes against Tamils. Democracy insisting the need to recognise two Nation States in the island is an old lesson. But the new lesson is to the International Community, especially to the West that is slipping for the third time within one year, first in stopping the war, then in human rights action in the UN and now in bringing out a ‘democratic’ regime change. There is also a lesson to revisionist Tamil polity and media that wasted the crucial time of Tamils by harping on regime change and not concentrating on the own political organisation of Tamil nationalism.
The ‘democratic’ verdict in Sri Lanka very clearly goes against the paradigm ‘post-war national reconciliation’ the International Community attempts to impose on the peoples of the island.
As the Sinhala Nation mandated Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Tamil Nation either boycotted or voted for regime change show a sharp difference of opinion in what is meant by reconciliation.
If reconciliation is the point, it has to be approached as reconciliation of two Nation States in the island is the message of the elections.
The results of the elections open the eyes of many among Tamils, who were thinking that moderate politics means hoping on a ‘post-conflict’ regime change supported by the Sinhala Nation.
The leading political faction representing the Tamils took a clear decision on this. Even though sections of Tamils have favourably responded to it, the majority seems to have rejected it by spontaneously boycotting the elections. This is clearly visible in the North. The mixed nature of demography and new electoral arrangements make it difficult to read it in the East, but poll centre pattern when released will show it.
However, the voting pattern in the entire North and East sends an obvious message to Tamil paramilitary outfits collaborating Mahinda Rajapaksa and to their few supporters in the diaspora that they are not acceptable to Tamils.
Tamil circles in the diaspora expect new vigour to be shown in the political organisation of Tamil nationalism, both in the diaspora and in the island.
Colombo-centric system will enter into a new crisis with a bitter division of its own capitalism is the analysis coming from media circles in Colombo.
The election results places India in a more precarious position in its geopolitical competition, especially with China.
As far as the West is concerned, which has lost opportunities of military intervention, diplomatic intervention, human rights intervention and now change-of-regime intervention – all because of twisting the national question of Tamils – the failures in the southern node of South Asia are sure to reflect on its credibility in the northern node too, commented a Colombo-based political analyst.
The level of democracy in the island was best illustrated by the defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka in an interview during the early hours of Wednesday, when he called for the intervention of ‘outside governments’ to prevent dictatorship and to protect democracy in the island.
There is no surprise that south endorsed a govt that could stand firm against the demands for dilution of power without anything back from the otherside. Singhalese people are not barbarians to support and encourage genocide. It should be understood that the people so innocent and average god fearing people.
On the other hand, Tamils want everything from Singhalese but don’t want to give anything back. The Singhalese need protection of their livlyhood, language and religion. After all, their language survives only in Sri Lanka.
So the election results should not surprise anyone. If Singhalese people to drop their guard, the Tamils should start to recognise the concerns of the Singhalese people. Let the Tamil politicians make noises to convince the Singhalese, not India or Diaspora Tamils.
Congratulations to Mahinda!
The Sunday Leader took a decision to support Fonseka and now they have egg on their faces.
Nearly 40% Singheela People may go to Tamileelam to survive or go overseas in a boat(may be to Australia) fearing for their life(like Sarath Fonseka)
Election’s done. Mr Won. SF lost, how ever mamaged to get 40 odd mil votes. this is what I cannot beleive. The man’s gone on record saying the he couldn’t get anything done about the economy if he listned to the economists- All because they didnt think it was a good idia to raise every bloody public servants wage bu Rs.10000. 40 million people thought this was ok????
No fake political gifts future.
Yes MR won very easily. But the way he achieved that is well known to all intelligent people all over the world. He has taught a lesson to all successive politicians in Sri Lanka on how to win elections. But each and every one who took part in the dirty drama will pay for it dearly. And the worst is not only those who supported this and still coughing and shouting for the blood of SF, who shed his blood for the country and its people, but all other innocent people will suffer in the coming years. The saddest thing is the country is divided once again very badly, politically and emotionally.