In 2005 Mahinda Rajapakse won the Presidential elections with a wafer thin margin. To date, controversy remains as to whether Prabakaran was bribed though that seems quite far fetched though it is pretty obvious that the tiger leader did not wish to deal with Ranil and his Western Christian agenda though LTTE is closely linked to and steered by the Catholic church. Essentially the Church plays a critical role in the political framework of Sri Lanka and President Rajapakse would know too well for he has countless times submitted himself before the Church in what we can term a cowardly act of appeasement. While the lion in him roared to take Sri Lanka to the international map claiming to be the only nation to have defeated terrorism in 2009, thereafter it was a downfall orchestrated by his own pigheaded behaviour and do not care attitude for his people.
Thus the 2010 Presidential election bid was an effort to oust him which failed though the experiment encouraged the current success story as a result of Rajapakse's own follies... we now list down these in no particular order.
1. Bloated head following victory over terrorism - thinking that he and only he was the man behind the war effort. Though partly true, the soldiers should not have been forgotten and more benefits should have come to them far more than they have got over the years.
2. Betraying the Sinhala Buddhists that voted for him, that backed him throughout the war effort, throughout the calls calling for war crimes trials - whereas other than a small handful of Tamils and Muslims the majority of them were all not bothered what happened to Mahinda Rajapakse, Gotabaya Rajapakse or any of the soldiers who won the war.
3. Betraying his religion and going 4 times to the Vatican to bring the Pope and allow an Indian to be made a Saint in Sri Lanka where in he should have known that Joseph Vaz came as a spy to convert the masses and therefore what an insult it was on the part of a Govt that was bound by the constitution to protect and foster Buddhism to have initiated a visit of the Pope and a canonization just because his wife was a Catholic. It was this very Church that worked behind the scenes to orchestrate his downfall with European intelligence agencies and they must all be laughing at Mahinda Rajapakse and his family. Yet inspite of this Mahinda Rajapakse did not have any qualms about coming all the way to Colombo to kiss the hand of the Pope and worship him. He cannot come before the people as a Buddhist leader. He has given up that right.