Candid Candidate Assessment 2 – Sarath Fonseka, his negatives

Sarath Chandralal Fonseka's big negative is his white flag caper with Fredrica 'the friend' Jansz. Some say he has lived that down, but this was the corniest friendly-fire episode any army general in military history was ever involved in.
But then the Sunday Leader is an idiot's organ - - and has for eons been that.
Fonseka in fact hopes, I heard, that it would be taken in that sprit. Long duration idiots are not taken seriously, and the Leader editor has admitted last week she is a total purple moron. (Unadulterated as they come in that department....)
No surprises there. We said so in a column three weeks ago that all this kerfuffle about Fonseka was that she thought she was supporting him by headlining the white flag story. (Refer Rajpal Abeynayake column of 20.12.2009).
By the way, this is why we have to self-advertise here and say, you can read other papers for other reasons, but if you want to know the real truth and the real trends, you have to go with Lakbimanews.)
So bingo.
Frederica writes last week, yes, Leader Publications took a managerial decision to support Fonseka, and she acquiesced, mind you, without bothering to inform the readers that her paper is now endorsing SF, the presidential candidate.

So called free media

Now, this is the so-called independent newspaper which rains buckets of free media rhetoric from rooftops.
Wow -- now they tell us. "We the unafraid and unbowed took a managerial decision to support Fonseka, and told nobody about it. We just passed off as an unbowed independent publication. Shrug."
In fact, Fredrika has confirmed everything this newspaper and this writer stated about the ex Leader editor Wickremetunge also.
In a recent article she wrote that President Mahinda Rajapaksa commended her for being independent when Lasantha was not. (!)
Here is the extract from that: "When I met with you we had a very cordial and frank discussion where you spent an hour with me discussing the future of The Sunday Leader, my functions as its new Editor and even reminisced about late Lasantha Wickrematunge. On that occasion, you agreed that the newspaper had taken a very definite and clear shift in terms of editorial policy and that The Sunday Leader was no longer perceived to be biased or partial on any front ......"
She plunges the knife deep in there into the dead editor's body. An incontrovertible certified dy-mytholigisation of Lasantha Wickremetunge by the current editor - - written under her hand.
So why not Rohan Pethiyagoda the ghost writer of the "They are going to kill me soon'' so-called Lasantha Wickremetunge editorial, (written of course by Pethiyagoda categorically after Wickremetunge's death...) now come out from his hiding place and ghost write another editorial for Fred about not bowling to the fielding side? Shoosh! Entire factories of corny humbug --- only at that silly rag they are capable of it.
But I digress, but not quite digress.
Sarath Fonseka's biggest negative, almost, was that he initially slept with morons of the Sunday Leader.
When you sleep with people with no brains, you end up waking up with some of your own brains being siphoned off - - or at least having that feeling. Fonseka had the Leader-dunderhead hangover for a long time.
This time the Leader dunderheads, nay morons, nay serial losers, thought that accusing Gotabhaya by hook or by crook about so called killings of LTTE surrendees would bury Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Instead, the ploy almost buried Fonseka. It's because these sillies think that just because they have been pro-LTTE simply because they have an axe to grind with Mahinda, the whole world becomes pro-LTTE with them - - or at least that the whole of Sri Lanka does.
They think they are so central to the national discourse that just because they are pro-LTTE due to expedient, utterly cynical traitorous self-interests, the rest of the nation has fallen in line with them.
What can you do with such plumed donkeys?
I take them for comic relief. Fredrica, stand up, the stand-up comedian. Move over Mervyn Silva, someone out there can be sillier than you actually.
Now moving on from that, Fonseka says he has buried the Leader caper. He may well have. We'd have to wait and see.
The rest of Fonseka's negatives, compared to Mahinda Rajapaksa's negatives which were carried in these spaces last week -- in case anybody missed them - - are obvious.
He is an army officer, and people are sometimes loathe to take their chances on an unknown military angel.

Notable negatives

He has no political experience. Those are the obvious minuses which I shall not go over for obvious reasons.
But his other notable negative is that he is almost totally seen to be bowled over by his political handlers in the UNP and the JVP these days.
If he is his own man, he seems to be too overawed by the entire big political spectacle which he is suddenly a part of, to in fact show decisively that he is his own man. Though by that he shows he is a good team player, he has not shown that he cannot be manipulated by the UNP, if the JVP some day is out of the picture.
He is often photographed with the wasted UNP rouges gallery. Sometimes when he is shown having taken his shirt off at a kovil or some place like that with Ranil, there is material for a hearty laugh; Ranil has his endearing qualities.
But when he is seen with his shirt off with more sinister and inane characters of Pamankada Alimankada fame, it's as if he has entered the portals of the evil empire.
Fonseka has to connect with the majority-Sinhala grassroots as his own man, on the strength of his own charisma and not via the JVP. It doesn't appear that he has done that, but if he does lose this election it would be because he has not connected to the Sinhala base as opposed to Rajapaksa, who has a solid vote block in the Sinhala heartland.
Fonseka has done well for himself in garnering the Tamil vote, hopefully for himself, via the plethora of Tamil parties now surrounding him ---- but he has to see that it wasn't done at the cost of the larger Sinhala vote.
To that extent, that one camera shot of him with his shirt off and with all the war scars showing should virtually be his campaign symbol. He could bury Fredrica Jansz's silly ghost by flashing that camera shot every second he gets, perhaps, until the end of the campaign.
Fonseka's other negatives such as lack of experience, and being a military man etc., are not ones that he can change. If he is going to lose votes because of these attributes he is going to lose votes, and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Some say that appearing ungrateful to the regime is a negative adding up to his column. I beg to differ. It's the Rajapaksas who appear to be ungrateful to all and sundry these days, so he is safe on that count.
But his other big negative is the intangible nature of a possible Fonseka incumbency. Scare stories abound.
They say he would be a military despot, a waiting junta man, a pirouetting Pinochet, a Pol-Pot on a platter.
The people may say they if that may be the case they have not much of a choice -- the choice is between two potential dictators, and they are certainly sure Rajapskasa can go in a decidedly dictatorial direction if he consolidates his power in this election.
People's fears are a negative that Fonseka cannot in the end do much about.
That's Fonseka's potentially insurmountable negative. His negatives stay negatives. He just has to learn to live with them, flaunt his positives, and hope for the best come the 26th.