END OF PSEUDO DEMOCRACY

The title may bring to one's mind several instances of the end of pseudo democracy in the world,but this article restricts itself to the context of  ending of such a pseudo democracy in one of the most conflicting countries of South East Asia,SRILANKA.I try to give a brief article on the reasons for the defeat of Mahind Rajapaksa who was so sure of his victory that he called in an election 2 years before its scheduled happening!!!

I quote from the Guardian on the day of the result
"If seven weeks anyone had said Mahinda Rajapaksa would be conceding defeat and vacating presidential office in quite such an apparently docile fashion it would have seemed a very brave prediction indeed. No one expected a challenge, let alone a defeat."

This was the true state of politics of the island nation up until last week. Though people have been wanting to change the authoritarian rule of Mahinda Rajapaksa, they did not.In my view it is partly  because  Rajapaksa finally ended several decades old ethnic conflict,by killing Prabhakaran,the long feared Tiger supremo,this gave the sinhalese people a thought of saviour about Mahinda Rajapaksa.Though this thought gradually diminished due to his ruling and him modifying the Srilankan constitution to give uncontrolled executive powers to him,and deprived of the Judiciary its Independency. The Acts of the Rajapaksa Government enacted in this regard at the Parliament were passed keeping one thing in mind,To allow Rajapaksa or the President to have unduly powers not guaranteed by the present Constitution.The popular result of several amendments of the constitution was the removal on the limit of presidential terms of the President.A striking similarity is observed with the United States is the limit on the Presidential terms is still there in United States because,the legislators perfectly know that they will lose popularity with the people so openly with such a rule and will explicitly show their thirst for power,which normally never goes well in a country with a certain mood of Democracy.These amendments has resulted in calling Rajapaksa regime as authoritarian, a word that is apt and has reversed the entire system of democracy in Srilanka paving way for a monarch or autocratic Government in this 21st Century,wherein the masses have been duly educated about the merits of Democracy and when the rights of Citizens were fought much in every spectrum of the country,this authoritarian Editing of a subject that too the Constitution Of A country has proved to be gravely unpopular 

One other reason people struck with Rajapaksa was that  they were not given a convincing choice about who could lead the nation if not for Rajapaksa. This feeling too was partly fueled by the winning of the Ethnic War by Rajapaksa  and partly because of the crippling policies of Rajapaksa even from the beginning which slowly wiped out an effective opposition to his rule.Rajapaksa was calculative even from the beginning of his rule not to go easy on free media and a free opposition.

The winning of the ethnic war and his projection about it has garnered Far-Right nationalist support to Rajapaksa even which he slowly lost due to Authoritarian laws in the Constitution that threatened the Basic rights of the people in a long term,

The growing discontent among the ethnic tamil population and Rajapaksa's partial implementation of the provisions of the Government as guaranteed in the Constitution of srilanka have resulted in no support from the ethnic tamil groups,the appointing of the Governor of Northern Provincial Council and again giving him unduly powers openly has undermined the tamil support to the Central Government as has been the case for the previous Central Governments of Sri Lanka,who have systematically denied the rights for tamils for the fear of being ousted though such fearsome rights were never demanded by any of the people who led the Tamil Diaspora starting from S.J.V.Chelvanayakam to Velupillai Prabhakaran,this discontent and the absence of support from the tamil people was expected but Rajapaksa could have mobilized a support for the tamil people after the ethnic conflict was finally over by properly designing rehabilitation camps and displacement camps and then properly giving rights and placing them in proper place would have ensured the support of tamils at least at the end.The Governor appointee of the Northern province was also not due to the popular opinion of the people of the Northern Provincial Council but due to the whims and fancies of the President has ensured that a puppet Governor with Unduly powers than an elected Chief minister.Though this move may seem to appease the nationalist population,the percentage of such a population has constantly dwindled over the years and now people want to live peacefully,so they also want to give the liberal rights demanded by the tamil people so that further ehtnic conflict may be avoided.On the whole like previous Presidents of Sri Lanka,Rajapaksa was a huge failure in garnering the support of tamils,even after the clear mandate given by the people Rajapaksa failed to devolve the powers to the Northern Provincial Council properly and this led to his added unpopularity with the Tamil people who constitute 11% of the population

Lastly to say Rajapaksa did one of the grave mistakes,he has taken the route of dynastic politics wherein one family controls the monopoly of several spheres of economy so that the laws and legislations can be enacted to ensure the profitability of their chosen sphere,even when such a legislation is crippling to that field.The Defence seceretary Gothabaya Rajapaksa,Brother of the President took most decisions that benefited him in the Defence matters which is a grave threat to national security.Directly or indirectly his family controlled of over 70% of the national economy which is definitely a huge percentage in a participative democracy wherein equal representation of every body is required and the able minded administrators administer the legislations to that region where they are given their powers.The family members effectively eliminated competition in their respective fields denying others a chance even when they were better equipped than the Rajapaksas.This also led to the downside of his victory

In a way and Rajapaksa and his brother even after being accused of war crimes continue to deny the allegation and also continue to deny a neutral free and fair  investigation by a statutory body like the U.N.The relief works are also carried out by a very minimal people from International Statutory bodies like red cross on a promise that the Government itself will give the best care to people affected of the War,but which the Government never does.This also raised the eyebrows of international strategic analysts as a move that will definitely have an impact on the vote bank specially that of Tamil diaspora due to the varied Diaspora of tamils from sri lanka being settled in other nations.

Finally to conclude this article Rajapaksa fought lost a cause even after fighting and winning it but he did not learn to mobilize the surging support he got by winning the war,to end this I finally quote again from The Guardian

"A prolonged period of political chaos would open the way for a Rajapaksa comeback in the mid, if not the short, term."