It’s only hubris if I fail – Julius Caesar
The dark under eye bags spoke of stress and perhaps a number of sleepless nights. Even the grand welcome, which saw the entry of a gleeful president, could not fully camouflage the stiffened features. While the grandeur of the pageantry overwhelmed the audience the president remained quite thoughtful.
It was not until half way through his speech that President Mahinda Rajapaksa regained his carefree, casual confidence. However once he got back to his old self he made no mistake of it to hammer everyone left and right. However much he tried to mask his anger with jovial demeanor all his facial expressions gave away the fumes – that he is frothing mad with the opposition for what they are going to do.
The tone of the speech surely disturbed the informed sections of the SLFP and countrymen and it only stopped short of being a gallery talk. The speech writer undoubted has done some major damage to the President’s image by trying to create a village ‘chandiya’, ‘I am the man’ kind of impression at the historic occasion – the first ever SLFP convention after the unification of the country. Instead of sounding it a humbling experience, an honour to address fellow party men after ending the war, the writer has made him a virtual megalomaniac who was out to get reassurances from the audience about his feat. He had never looked so vulnerable and never spoken so loose before and it was quite obvious that somebody’s bright work did immense damage to the head of the State’s image.
While many said that the President has improved his Tamil pronunciation the way he did the in between Sinhala interludes made him sound more like a desperate hero in a south Indian movie.
However the tinge of melancholia with which President said ‘some of those who were with us to protect the country would not be there when we rebuild the country’ struck a cord with the audience as well as those who watched him on TV. History as he said certainly had its parallels – post war Vijayabahu had his generals rising against him while Dutugemunu had the giant Gotaimbara rebelling against him. However rather than capitalizing on that the President went off on a tangent hammering the opposition with a lot of venom in a display of susceptibility. As a result even the very valid point that he made – that D.S. Senanayake’s United National Party which once had excess of leaders is now begging on streets for a Presidential candidate - failed to have its desired impact.
One however should give credit to President and the SLFP leadership for not manipulating the audience. Since the supporters came in bus loads they could have easily got the crowds to say that they wanted a general election instead of presidential polls and then shown his ‘magnanimity’ by announcing Presidential elections later.
After all it’s a matter of the closest auspicious day before the battle of the Titans – the mother of all elections.
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