The election is a Referendum on Mahinda Rajapaksa

There is but one way to put it. President Mahinda Rajapaksa made this presidential election essentially a referendum on whether his war success trumps everything else. He of course assumed that people would source the entire trump of the war effort to himself and himself only.
Why is it clear that Mahinda Rajapaksa has made this election a referendum on the war triumph?
It’s because at various times his own ministers have said so themselves, and he has affirmed that fact, occasionally, himself.
Basically, Rajapaksa must be very naive to if he thinks that he can win a prematurely called election on development issues.
But, whatever they may have accused him of being, they have never accused him of being naive.
It’s clear therefore that Mahinda Rajapaksa believes that the other issues such as economy, governance, corruption etc., are all subservient to the main issue which is that he has won the war and the people will make this election a referendum on that fact, and vote for him ergo.
If Mahinda Rajapaksa wins this election his position would have been vindicated. But if he does not, it would mean that he made the election a referendum on his war success and lost.
If he wins the election, it would be an against the odds assertion by the electorate —- Sinhala and even sections of the Tamil —— that the war was the main issue at this election. It will be confirmation that in their minds, winning the war and freeing them of the war-worry was more important to people than anything else.
But if he loses this election, history would have to record that Mahinda Rajapaksa was good at wining the war, but was not a very savvy politician, because he called for a referendum on the war success, miscalculated his chances on that score, and lost.
But if he wins, it will be proven that no mater what anybody says, Sri Lankans consider the war success the only issue of this time and that all other issues are, for a majority of Sri Lankans, essentially unimportant.
All these others issues would be democracy, corruption, good governance, nepotism, family bandysm etc.,
It is clear today that Mahinda Rajapaksa himself now thinks that such issues are essentially unimportant and secondary.

Allegations of corruption

He has not made any enormous effort to take head- on the allegations of corruption, nepotism, bad governance, disrespect of the constitution etc.. Instead, he hammers-on on the one issue that he thinks is important - - the fact that he won the war against all pressures from outside, and made it easier for people to sleep at night, and go for work and send children to school, without worrying about bombs going off.
It is true that, latterly he has also highlighted some development issues, but still it’s not hard to see that the main pivot of his campaign is the war success.
If he wins, all that he almost religiously believes in would be vindicated. It would be clear that the war threat and the war anxiety troubled people so much that they would do anything for the man who got rid of the war menace.
But if he does not win the election, history would record that he made a monumental miscalculation that the war victory trumps everything else. It would also record that even if he is a good statesman or a good man —- there will be differing positions on that - that, in the main, he was not savvy enough a politician, because he miscalculated, indeed overestimated, the public resonance of the war triumph.
History will also then record that Mahinda Rajapaksa has the kind of jingoistic political personality that was useful — no imperative, utterly crucial — in winning the war, but did not know how to deftly alter that image to suit peacetime conditions and peacetime demands.
If the opposition wins, they would say that the people calculated well - - they chose man who was suited to win the war, but they chose an alternative combine to go forward with the peace.
If Mahinda Rajapaksa wins history would probably record that the people of this country thought that though the war was over, that victory had to be consolidated by re-electing the man who won it, to ensure that no terrorists or foreign terrorist backers would — in short - - try their nonsense again. If the people re-elected the president, it would, paradoxically even mean that they do not consider the war to be really over, though it’s over....
In fact by extension of all that was said above - - this election becomes a Referendum not on Mahinda Rajapksa’s war success but a Referendum on Mahinda Rajapaksa himself. Is the war winning commander in chief, suited to be peacetime President?

Intractable war

The question on the 26th boils down to that. There are people who believe that nothing succeeds like success, and that Rajapaksa, never mind his record on other issues, would tackle and triumph on other post-war issues if he is given a second term, if he succeeded on the enormously difficult almost intractable war.
There are others who see it differently. They see, simply, that Mahinda Rajapaksa is too far gone and too over the top with his war success and all the hubris that it has entailed, to come back to terra firma and govern normally as a normal level-headed person.
They feel his hubris overtook him, which is precisely why he ordered a premature election overconfidently, and paved the way for his own downfall.
There are historical parallels of hubris from Caesar to some colourful monarchs in the Mahawamsa. If Mahinda Rajapaks does not win, it will be written that he lost his bearings in the sea of post war hubris - - it would also be written that he really wasn’t a clever politician or particularly clever at anything else except winning the war —- and that essentially he was a ‘macho man’ who could win a war but was conspicuously unsuitable for anything else.
The question before the electorate is, is this true?
If Mahinda Rajapaksa wins — cleanly and without blatant rigging that is —- it would be recorded that he created an overwhelming public mood through the war, which he read correctly, in the face of the formidable and jarring numbers. If he wins - - cleanly and not in a rigged election - he would have proved wrong any estimation that he is an aggressive man who was only suited to jingoistically win a war that had to be won by any means at hand.