REGIONAL | CONTRIBUTOR
PHOTO: REUTERS
what the opposition was seeking. Other messages of fear popped up as the polling date neared. On Colombo street corners, large billboards appeared evoking images of civilian victims of Tamil Tigers rebels during Sri Lanka’s nearly 30-year ethnic conflict. The spread of similar imagery and ideas had served Mr. Rajapaksa well when he triumphed at the January 2010 poll to secure his second term. The incumbent appeared to have two intentions in resurrecting a slice Sri Lanka’s recently elected president Maithripala Sirisena waves at media as he leaves the election commission of history that is in Colombo on Jan. 9. still a raw, unhealed national wound. One was to tap the public’s memory to win votes. After all, he was a war-winning president, whose regime had backed an onslaught by government troops to vanquish the Tigers in May 2009. The second was to serve as a warning to the country about the challengers to his incumbency: a victory for them could see a return to war. Fortunately, the people did not fall for the fear mongering, or for the image Mr. Rajapaksa had cultivated for himself as the country’s best protector How the ballot box triumphed to usher in a new from the bogeys of international pressure, another ethnic conflict or order political upheaval. A majority of the impressive 81.5 percent of voters who cast their ballots on Jan. 8 decided that By MARWAAN MACAN-MARKAR / COLOMBO it was a time for change. In fact, the Sri Lankan autocrat was ousted due to another form of fear— the dread of an unprecedented third made an appearance in the political ashing in on the politics of term for Mr. Rajapaksa that would conversation weeks before the Jan. 8 fear had become a stocklast until 2022. presidential poll, it came with a twist. in-trade for Mahinda This sense of dread was of Mr. Sri Lanka’s 15 million voters were Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa’s own making. It had reared warned that chaos would ensue if an ruler since his first election as the allits head four years earlier, when he Arab-style uprising took root on the powerful executive president in 2005. began using his military triumph island. There were more dark hints So it was hardly surprising that to appear increasingly imperial, from the Rajapaksa camp that this was when the phrase “Arab Spring”
Shining Moment for Democracy in Sri Lanka
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TheIrrawaddy
March 2015