by Rajan Philips

Not quite The Charge of the Light Brigade that the English Poet Tennyson wrote during the Crimean war, but Sri Lankan voters have not cannons but candidates to the right of them, candidates to the left of them, candidates in front of them, and even to the back of them. With 38 candidates officially running in the election, there are enough to surround the voters from all directions.

Out of the 38 only three are expected to perform significantly and at least keep their deposits. They are to the left (AKD), right (RW) and centre (SP), and each one of them is making a distinct pitch to attract voter attention. This week saw AKD and the NPP going first with the release of their Manifesto simultaneously in Sinhala and Tamil on Monday. The Independent Ranil Wickremesinghe followed suit on Thursday, but only in Sinhalese with an executive summary in English. Sajith Premadasa rushed in with his own the same day, but it was a limited edition for the Prelates of the Sangha; the more public version is not expected for almost a week on September 4.

Pictures do tell political stories. The two pictures juxtaposed above are from 2019 and 2024 and they illustrate the NPP’s spectacular rise under Anura Kumara Dissanayake – from the deposit losing 3% in 2019 to being a real contender for power in 2024. Pundits are lining up behind the three candidates and are using punditry to promote their favourite candidate. Yet there does not seem to be a corresponding effort to discern the voters and locate the candidates relative to the different segments that make up the voting public.

Who to vote for?

The veteran columnist Kusal Perera rhetorically asks the question “Whom should I vote for this presidential election?” (Financial Times, 28 August 2024), and finds none of the three leading candidates eligible for his vote. Similar to the majority of respondents in the CPA survey that I cited last week. Mr. Perera lists the known infamies of Ranil Wickremesinghe and Sajith Premadasa who are both cut from the same UNP cloth, but at its extreme social ends. In addition, Mr. Perera lists quite a few surprising charges against Anura Kumara Dissanayake and traces them to the JVP’s past.

An interesting but lost nugget that Mr. Perera resurrects is the alleged cahooting between the JVP and the Indian High Commission in Colombo to undermine the Ranil-Norway peace process two decades ago. It was widely known that then President Kumaratunga got India’s imprimatur before pulling the rug under the Wickremesinghe government in October 2003, and upending the peace process. But the JVP’s implication is not so widely known. Much blood, water and draught have come and gone since, but its significance today is the possibility that for all its anti-Indian rhetoric the JVP would seem to have had parallel ties with the Indian establishment. And going farther back in time than the much publicized formal visit of Anura Kumara Dissanayake to New Delhi last year to meet with Modi’s mandarins.

There may be others like Kusal Perara who may choose not to vote or spoil their ballot at the booth. But that is not going to stop the election being completed and a new president elected, likely with less than 40% of the total votes in the election. There are rumours and concerns that Ranil Wickremesinghe might play yet another trick to thwart a conclusive election outcome. His decision to supply MPs with repeater shotguns and his gazette extraordinaire for the armed forces to be at the ready to maintain public order, look weird and they sure feed the rumour mill.

But Anura Kumara Dissanayake has dismissed any threat to the elections due to Ranil playing tricks, and has confidently predicted that the NPP will be forming a new government. He has also asserted that Mr. Wickremesinghe will not be able to do anything about it because the government servants, the police and the army including retired veterans are all supporting the NPP. It would have been far better if Mr. Dissanayake had called on the government servants, the police and the armed forces to stand neutral and do their job impartially instead of tagging all or most of them as JVP/NPP supporters.

Just days before the 1977 election, then UNP leader JR Jayewardene gave a public warning to public officials and the police (the army was hardly involved in election security those days) that they should not follow undue directions from higher ups that were intended to bolster the outgoing (SLFP) government. If they could not rebuff bad orders, JRJ said, they should go on leave and return after the election with the new (UNP) government in power.

Mr. Dissanayake could and should have made a statement like JRJ instead of claiming that vital parts of the government are already a part of his campaign. That somewhat undermines his sweeping thesis that he is the pre-eminent change candidate who will undo all the misdoings of the past 76 years. At the same time, the NPP leader if elected president should refrain from doing what JRJ did after becoming Prime Minister and then President in 1977/78. JRJ went on to preside over the politicization of the state apparatus like never before. Nothing has been the same since.

Fast forward to 2024, all three candidates are crisscrossing the country holding rallies and making speeches, but no one knows for sure who is in the lead and who is behind. Through the very questionable polls, self-promotional assertions, special pleading by pundits and weighted gossip, what seems to average out is that of the three main candidates – Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Sajith Premadasa are jostling between the first and second positions, and Ranil Wickremesinghe is behind in third – but “surging,” whatever that means. There is an old saying – if you are drowning, it doesn’t matter if you are a foot or a furlong under water. But surging under water is a new metaphor.

Change and Continuity

With only three weeks to go before the election, the campaign is entering a new phase with the releasing of the manifestos. But manifestos by themselves are unlikely to change the directions in which the voters seem to be leaning already. AKD and the NPP have been releasing manifestos for quite some time. In a sense, they are the most consistent callers for change; their manifesto is both a continuity and evolution from 2019, and the follow up in February 2022. Their electoral progression was interrupted by Ranil Wickremesinghe when he executively denied funds for the local government elections disregarding even the Supreme Court’s order.

Now Ranil Wickremesinghe is the continuity candidate, but his campaign seems hopelessly top heavy. He has the largest number of ‘agents’ – all Ministers appointed by him and MPs who depend on him for their pension. The images of RW and his entourage bring back memories of MR 1 (duly blessed by MR 2) and his entourage before the January 8 election in 2015. They looked on the way out rather than staying put. What is it going to be for RW now?

Ranil Wickremesinghe is also trying out alternative slogans, like Donald Trump in the US. He first got 34 parties to sign on to the slogan, Puluwan Sri Lanka, in a Battaramulla ceremony, a play on Barak Obama’s “Yes, we can” mantra. That was supposed to be the title of his election manifesto. But the slogan did not catch on, and so the manifesto was released on Thursday with a different title: “Five Years of Winning the Country with Ranil.” Its “principal components,” the five precepts, speak for themselves: “Theravada Trade Economy,” “Operation – Beyond 2025,” “Make a Radiant Society,” “Win the Motherland,” and “Unite Sri Lanka.”

Sajith Premadasa is in the middle and is in contention. The manifesto release in two editions and a week apart may have been a slip up. He is found to be appealing by those on the right who are frustrated with Ranil Wickremesinghe, and those in the middle who find Anura Kumara Dissanayake a little too far to the left. There are others who find commonalities between Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake; those on the right find the commonalities to be alarming, and those on the left use them to call Sajith Premadasa a progressive.

Interestingly, and hopefully consequentially, both Premadasa and Dissanayake are committed to ending the executive presidential system and returning to a parliamentary system that will have a Head of State elected by the people’s representatives. Ranil Wickremesinghe is silent on the matter. His main mantra is the IMF and the irrevocability of the Agreement he reached with the IMF. But he should know that any agreement can be renegotiated without revocation, especially after a national election. And the election is not a referendum on the IMF Agreement.

The presidential election is not going to be conclusive in itself without an immediately following parliamentary election. Ranil Wickremesinghe is the only candidate who would be inclined to keep the current parliament going as long as it could. And, if elected, he will. Premadasa and Dissanayake, on the other hand, are likely to dissolve the current parliament and go for a parliamentary election as soon as possible.

At the same time, the transition from the presidential election to the election of a new parliament will be an uncharted period for the country in the event of a Premadasa victory or, perhaps more so, a Dissanayake victory and the NPP reduced from three to two MPs in parliament. Not that the bridging challenges during a transitional period cannot be identified or addressed. But they need to be acknowledged in advance by the candidates and articulated as part of their current campaign. That will also add to the validity of their claim that they can be trusted with power.

by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The nomination process of the contenders for the election of the President of the United States on November 5 has now been finalized.The Republican nomination was concluded at the end of the Republican National Convention in June, 2024, when former President Donald J. Trump and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance were nominated to the Republican presidential ticket.

The nomination was preceded by a mysterious attempted “assassination” of Donald Trump, when he was speaking at an open-air campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, a few days before the Convention. Trump was shot by a sniper with an AR 15 rifle, and escaped with a “graze” to his earlobe. President Biden has called for an independent investigation of this near-catastrophe, which is ongoing.

One would have thought that news about Trump’s near-death encounter, with the iconic photograph of an act of extreme defiance and courage, raising his arms, shouting the words, “Fight, Fight, Fight” against the line of fire, would have been given the limelight treatment in election campaign advertisements. Especially for a five-time Vietnam war draft-dodger with “bone spurs”, whose only self-confessed “bravery ” was avoiding contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) without using protection while having sex with prostitutes (“my personal Vietnam”) in the 1990s.

The news has been a well-kept secret. Trump, a narcissist, no stranger to self-aggrandization, has made scant reference to his incredible feat of courage and escape from near-death experience, which his supporters claim was due to the divine shield that protects him at all times. Like, I guess, the divine condom that protected him from contracting STDs in the 1990s.

The Democratic Party nominated to the presidential ticket 59-year-old Vice-President, Kamala Harris, as President, and 60-year-old Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as Vice President, at the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention.

Third Party Candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of JFK, suspended his campaign immediately after the Democratic National Convention last week and threw in his lot with Donald J. Trump.

Ever the political whore, RFK Jr had offered his endorsement earlier to Kamala Harris in exchange for a cabinet position in her administration. Which the Kamala camp had wisely rebuffed.

Trump, however, who has always had a penchant for whores of whatever stripe, considers himself fortunate to gain the endorsement of a member of the legendary Kennedy family, even one who has been disowned and held in contempt by the clan. Trump has much in common with RFK Jr, both being convicted felons, RFK Jr for drug trafficking, Trump for much of the gamut of the penal code.

There are two other candidates still in the race. Dr. Cornell West, 71, academic, historian and progressive political activist, who declared his candidacy in June 2023. A man way ahead of America’s medieval times, West is an independent candidate who has run out of campaign finances and is currently running at under 1% in the national polls. A left-wing candidate who supports the benefits enjoyed, one way or another, by the societies of every developed country in the world – wealth-tax on all billionaire holdings and transactions, a national $27 minimum wage, universal health care, affordable housing and free education, mandated family leave and free pre-K childcare, advanced alternative energy programs to eliminate dependence on fossil fuels and aggressive measures to combat climate change – in fact, all those Commie measures despised by even many regular Americans who suffer under the debunked Ann Rand misconceptions that greed is the only motivator of creation of new inventions and wealth. Dr West recently stated the obvious – that “neither party is speaking to the pressing needs of the poor and working people”. In the richest country in the world.

The other active candidate Dr Jill Stein, 74, physician and environmental activist, is running under the aegis of the Green Party. She was a partner of Dr. Cornell West when he was also running under the Green Party, till he decided to run as an Independent.

Both Dr West and Dr Stein have no earthly hope of winning the presidency, but if they do qualify, which is unlikely, they are both capable of swinging vital votes in favor of Donald Trump.

The presidential contest is still a toss-up according to national polls, though the energy which has been surging for the Harris/Walz ticket shows no signs of abating. The Democrats seem to have finally realized that their decade-long adoption of Michelle Obama’s strategy of “When they go low, we go high” has proved to be an abject failure. Especially now that the Trump campaign has veered to a flurry of putrid, personal sexual attacks against Vice-President Harris.

A new and more aggressive strategy, “When they go low, we kick them in their tiny genitals”, the only language Trump and his cohorts understand, is now being considered by the Democrats. They have been hitherto insulting Trump as an authoritarian, wannabe dictator, his supporters a cult of white supremacist neo-Nazis. Those epithets seemed to bother the Trumpers not at all, I suspect because they take these to be compliments, for they describe them exactly for what they are.

So the current strategy is to ridicule them, mock them on their various conspiracy theories and blatant lies, like windmills causing cancer, Lysol curing Covid and Trump’s obsession with his “crowd size” as President Obama did last week. This seems to be working as they are being driven to a manic rage of insecurity resulting in desperation.

Taunt Trump about the blonde weasel on his head, the fake orange spray tan, mock his third-grade vocabulary, his ignorant economic ideas, ridicule the size and mushroom-shaped genitals as described by Stormy Daniels; that he farts himself to sleep during court appearances in New York and remind him of his servitude to Russian President Putin, his ridiculous “love affair” with murderous North Korean dictator, Kim Jung Un, love letters and all. These are provable facts, and they bring out the real, weak, insecure Donald Trump, not the strongman he tries to project himself. The psychopath who will be driven to even more outrageous lies, insults and impossible claims, the only line of defense he knows, which is now becoming increasingly stale.

Trump is already showing steroid-level signs of such desperate lies, He is vacillating on reproductive rights, overturning of Roe v. Wade, which, a few months ago, he was sounding off as one of his greatest achievements. He is guaranteeing tax cuts for all, higher wages, zero inflation, clean air and water, end to all wars, without any plan, just with a wave of his golden wand. He is exposing his ignorance in economic policies when he promises to fight inflation with higher tariffs on imports, as he doesn’t comprehend high tariffs will be paid by US consumers, resulting in higher prices.

His lies are also getting to be increasingly creative and entertaining, with not even a pretense to veracity. The latest whopper is worth reporting.

Trump says that some years ago, he was on a helicopter ride with the then San Francisco Mayor, Willie Brown. The chopper developed engine trouble and they were plunging to their death. The 60-year-old Brown, then one of the most prominent politicians in California, had famously had a romantic affair in the 1990s with then rising political star in California, Kamala Harris. There had been no secret at all in this consensual relationship between two single people – Brown was legally separated at the time, Kamala single and gorgeous.

At this moment of impending doom, according to Trump, Brown turned to him and said, “this might be of no use to you now, but do you remember that lady I was going out with, the prosecutor? Well, before we die, I just want you to know, she’s the worst. She’s a terrible woman. I don’t want to meet my maker without giving you this information. If we survive this crash, I am happy I was able to give this information to you, you may need it someday”!

When a reporter asked Willie Brown, who is now a sprightly 90-year-old, about this story, he said. “No, are you kidding me? I hardly know the man. I have never talked to him about Kamala, who is a dear friend. In any event, do you think I would talk about with a stranger a relationship I had with a lady years ago at the very moment I was facing death?” The obvious inference is that Trump is batshit crazy.

Brown went on, “When I first heard this story, I just assumed he had been on a bumpy helicopter ride with some black person and assumed it was me. I guess to Donald, all us Black guys look alike.”

In an interview with CBS News last week, Brown reiterated that he had never been in a helicopter with Trump and threatened to sue the former president because “somebody has got to make sure he stops lying”. An impossible task. Trump will stop lying only at the moment he stops breathing.

September should prove to be an interesting month.

The one and only presidential debate has been scheduled for September 10, but the terms of the debate have not yet been settled upon. It certainly looks as if Trump has realized the dangers of debating an erstwhile Attorney General of California, who has sent hundreds of rapists and fraudsters like him to prison. My guess is that he will make some excuses, about the channel, moderators, equipment, etc., blame Kamala and dodge the debate. He won’t be able to intimidate a seasoned prosecutor like Kamala with his schoolyard bully tactics. And his fear of strong women, especially strong black women, has been widely documented.

Trump will be facing the sentencing for 34 counts of felonies he was found guilty in the New York hush-money case, on September 18.

Washington DC District Judge Chutkan is determined to start the January 6, 2021 insurrection case during September. In addition, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a superseding indictment against Trump in this case last Tuesday, focusing on Trump’s role as a candidate and not as the president, which Smith hopes “comports with the US Supreme Court’s controversial immunity ruling and will let the case move forward”.

Kamala dispelled the rumors of her reluctance to hold press conferences after the Convention, when she and Walz sat down with CNN anchor Dana Bash on Thursday night for the first formal unscripted interview of their joint campaign.

She made an initial point about moving on from Donald Trump: “I think in the last decade, we have had in the former president someone who has really been pushing an agenda and an environment that is about diminishing the character and strength of who we are as Americans, really dividing our nation. And I think people are ready to turn the page on that”.

Harris said she has changed her position on some issues, such as fracking and single payer health care, but her values haven’t changed. She said she was proud to have played a part of Biden’s achievements especially after the Covid and economic mess they had inherited, adding the “current administration has achieved extraordinary successes”. But she pitched it as a first step, suggesting that “emerging from economic recovery would free her up to do bigger and better things”.

Harris gave the perfect answer when Dana Bash repeated Trump’s infamously racist question: “For years she was Indian, now she has turned black. What is she?” Harris smiled contemptuously and said: “Next question!”

Walz made little impact, and will probably help Kamala get part of the midwestern vote. He will be an adequate Vice-President. He will also be able to take over as President if something, God forbid, should happen to Kamala. After all, the bar set by Trump is pretty low, as all it needs is an IQ above 70 and fewer than a mixed bag of 91 felonies.

I don’t think the interview did much good nor did it do any harm. It didn’t move the needle much – Kamala still enjoys a slim lead in all the polls, including the swing states.

There are more than two whole months till election day. More than enough time to ridicule Trump, whom Kamala has most appropriately described as a “very unserious man”, to utter humiliation and mock him to that section of hell specially reserved for psychopathic losers.

Hopefully, Republican moderates, even some members of his cult, will see that the emperor has absolutely no clothes, that he is all bluster, lies and balderdash. And should be held accountable for his criminal behavior.

At a recent dinner with friends who keep close tabs on local and overseas politics, one said that Kamala Harris’ chosen running mate, Tim Walz, had a handicapped son. Googling, I came across the picture of a boy who does not look perfectly normal. The caption read “’That’s my Dad’: Tim Walz’s son Gus gives tearful reaction to speech”. The speech was Walz’ acceptance of running with Harris in the presidential race, delivered at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago on the third day of the four-day convention: August 21, 2004.

My interest was aroused, not curiosity certainly, and I gut felt Harris’ choice was a good one. Reading his detailed biography it was proven that he is a simple, kindly, sensible person with fellow feeling and different from the usual American. Also poles apart from Trump and his elite though decadent coterie of associates. Note I avoid using term ‘coterie of friends’. As was said by one of the speakers at the DNC, Trump has no friends, he is his only friend. Walz has used the word weird to describe Trump and that has stuck and is much used.

I listened to Tim Walz’s acceptance speech and my feeling of him being a good man was completely justified. He gave many personal details, even of the intense seven years of anxiety he and his wife endured when they were on fertility drugs. They named their first child Hope. Three years later Gus was born. Walz did not mention it but pictures of Gus showed him to be having Down Syndrome, very probably. The two kids, now teens, were seen in the video I watched, in tears as they listened and applauded their father. In his speech Walz said it was the honour of his life to be selected as Kamala Harris’s running mate. Who is this man was the burning question for me.

Biographical facts

Timothy James Walz, born April 6, 1964, in West Point, Nebraska, came from almost a village of very few people, who he mentioned were always concerned about each other. His father James Walz was superintendent of a town school and wife Darlene, a homemaker.

The father was also a Korean War veteran. Life was idyllic for Tim and his brother – playing football, basketball and golf, sometimes bus riding hundreds of miles to compete against other

schools in sports. His father contracted lung cancer being a chain smoker, and died in 1984. The family descended to impecunity with unpaid medical bills. Walz mentioned a social security clause they benefited from and survived. Hence his insistence on state help to families in financial difficulties and health benefits which he made law as Governor of Minnesota and promises to assist legislation that Kamala Harris proposes within these issues.

After high school at age 17, Walz joined the Army National Guard and served for 24 years. He also worked in a factory. He later graduated from Chadron State College in Nebraska. Mother and two sons moved to Texas and Tim enrolled at the University of Houston to follow East Asian studies. He went to Arkansas to work and returned in 1987. He then went to China as a teacher soon after the Tiananmen Square massacre whose aftermath affected him. He returned to his village in Nebraska in 1993 and was voted an outstanding teacher. Falling in love with co-teacher Gwen Whipple (b 1966), they were married in 1994 and moved to live in Gwen’s home state – Minnesota. By now he had his Master’s degree in education. Added to his teaching, he undertook coaching football.

He signed nomination papers to run for a House of Representative seat while a keen campaign worker for John Kerry. He was elected in 2007 and served as Congressman till 2019. He opposed the Iraq war. When in 2013 there occurred a government shutdown, he did not take his salary until the House of Reps resumed its sessions. He was reelected to the House five times before being elected 41^st governor of Minnesota in 2018 and reelected in 2022.

What he stands for

Particularly during his second term as Governor, “he pushed for and signed a wide range of legislation, including tax modifications, free school meals, bolstering state infrastructure, universal gun background checks, codifying abortion rights and free college tuition for low-income families.”

It is clearly seen that he is a humane person who used his position to improve the lot of the less privileged. Also remembering his family’s travails, he has done much to help in health issues where persons get into debt because of the long illness of a family member. State security help is available to them, as it was to his mother when she was widowed. During his acceptance speech he elaborated on these issues. As Governor, he reduced taxes so the life of the middle class improved. He mentioned that all school children are given two meals in school: breakfast and lunch. He admitted he possesses a gun and is a proponent for allowing responsible adults to possess a firearm but insisted on strict controls and he mentioned that with Kamala Harris as Prez, there would be no shootings in schools.

He is for freedom of women to choose whether to continue a pregnancy or resort to a legal abortion if the foetus is the result of rape or is abnormal or she cannot afford to have a child. Free higher education for children from less affluent families is a great benefit in the State he is governor of, as many are not able to afford university tuition fees; a scheme better than loans being taken while in university and having to repay them whether employed or not soon after leaving university.

The lowering of taxes and helping the less affluent is also one of Harris’ principle aims in leading the US, also ensuring the right to abortion and freedom of choice of women in their sexual lives. In her speech or Walz’s it was stated that Trump-appointed judges rescinded the freedom given women to choose to have a child or not, ensured by the Roe vs Wade judgment of January 23, 1973. This states: “The Supreme Court decided that the right to privacy implied in the 14^th Amendment protected abortion as a fundamental right. However the government retained the power to regulate or restrict abortion access depending on the stage of pregnancy.”

On August 6, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate in the November presidential elections. There were three final contestants whom she interviewed, it was said, and she selected the Governor of the State of Minnesota. Reading about him, seeing him and his family on video and listening to his acceptance speech, one is fully convinced she’s made the best choice since he shares the issues she is passionate about, emerges as a very humane person, and as he repeatedly said, “you have to see to your neighbor.”

Additionally he is an environmentalist and very concerned about global warming and more than fair to tribal persons and Native Americans. He even considered a simple problem of girls from less well to do families and passed a state law in 2023 that girl students be given free sanitary supplies which earned him the nickname Tampon Tim. He supports LGBTQ rights and the legalization of the use of cannabis. How more wisely liberal can one get?

Personal facts: born a Catholic he changed religion to his wife’s loyalty to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Charged with drunk driving in 1995, he foreswore alcohol permanently.

Another plus point sharply in contrast to Trump and run of the mill Republicans, he is comparatively poor. He and wife have no stocks, bonds or securities, no interest paying investments. His earnings are remuneration for the political post he holds and their joint pensions as teachers. He also gets a pension from National Guards. No wonder he said in his speech on August 21, “Donald Trump’s not fighting for you or your family. He never sat at that kitchen table like the one I grew up at, wondering how we were going to pay the bills.”

Tim Walz at the end of his acceptance speech said he has not made many public speeches, but he ended on a rousing note and to describe the political struggle ahead he used football jargon – “… our job is to tackle.” Asking those present to contribute their effort, he said “one call at a time, one ten dollar donation at a time… We have 76 days to move forward. Then we will turn the page on Trump.” He assured that Kamala Harris had solutions to problems of housing, medi-care and would ensure human rights. To his resounding cry of “When we fight” the audience shouted “We win” repeatedly.

It looks as if the United States of America will be in safe hands with Harris and Walz at the helm – she a Black American with an Indian mother who she is inordinately proud of and indebted to, and he a simple man with mixed blood – German, Swedish and Irish, the last probed and identified to be that an ancestor of his came from Kilmore, a village in south County Wexford, Republic of Ireland.