A matter of having to ink-in the result

The government party took a decision last week to limit a future cabinet to 35 — but other than this decision, it’ almost as if there is not much to talk about in a lackadaisical campaign season.
The opposition is almost reduced to secretly faulting each other for the general situation - — a government going for a steamroller majority, and a hapless opposition.
Last week the Fonseka juggernaut also looked very weak - - with Anoma Fonseka reduced to complaining to her party faithful that at least the window in the flat where the General is detained, should be opened for more ventilation.

Letter

The general dispatched a letter to the leader of the opposition, but that was all about his having to unite for the cause of democracy —- something sure not to tickle or either excite Ranil that much.
In the meantime, the JVP was musing at its weekly party hierarchy pow-wow that it is their party that is left with the task of mounting some sort of challenge to the government because all the rest of the opposition - - the UNP in particular - - is bothered about is staving off a two-thirds majority for the government.
The contours of what is to come in the immediate political landscape are clear.
The JVP resistance seems utterly inadequate to meet the Rajapaksa juggernaut.
The UNP is making its usual tentative noises, and Mangala Samaraweera himself is flailing, having totally run out of ideas and being kept on the backfoot - - his former confidant late Sreepathi Sooriyarachchi’s wife too joining the government last week. This mind you, after alleging at the time of Sreepathi’s death, that the government was somehow involved in his accident, which was called an ‘assassination.’’
In this backdrop, the Rajapaksa power base is undergoing hyper-rapid consolidation, with the nil blakaya led by Namal Rajapaksa being the engine of growth of the “Rajapaksa project.’’
The entire new trend of actors and cricketers coming on the UPFA ticket is under the purview and supervision of Namal Rajapaksa the president’s son - - who is now tipped to hold an important cabinet position in the new cabinet now expected to be pruned down to 35 - - though nobody is giving any guarantees on that.
Watching the rise and rise of the Rajapaksa juggernaut, Ranil Wickremesinghe quite late in the day mumbled at the end of this week that his party is going to form the next government - - but after he has been saying all along that a two thirds has to be staved off, this late breaking reaction of his, is having zero affect.
Though some newspapers are devoting reams to all the fine details of the Fonseka saga, the fact of the matter seems to be that nobody is really interested in that matter either very much now. It’s not whether this should or should not be so - it just seems to be the objective reality.
Even though people know there is corruption within the government, somehow the revelation that there were big bucks belonging to Danuna Tillakaratna in banks, has taken away some sympathy from the general predicament that faces the general, and that particular “street protest’’ situation.

Hit

The elections commissioner announcing that there should be only one party office in a district has in some way queered the pitch a little — and has hit the propaganda plans of some of the district aspirants in the major electoral districts on the map.
The president last week had a good word for the UNP rebels who are contesting on his ticket even though it is now speculated that a good number of them would not get into parliament. The president said that he was able to keep going during the war and during a very difficult phase because of the support forthcoming from these UNP rebels.
As usual it’s the governance issues and the media suppression issues that the opposition is left with - - the problem being that these issues are not serving in the least to excite the mass base in the rural sector.
These issues can enhance the street-cred of the JVP and give the illusion of a mass protest mode - - but the reality is that the masses are not excited, and in some estimates, that they are resigned to a massive UPFA victory - - though in other estimates they would be happy with a UPFA victory, period. After all, if it is a massive UPFA victory, they would have voted for it....
With this state of play, people are switching channels, watching some other teleldrama other than the boring election teledrama that now seems to unfold in incremental uninspiring episodes.