What is the difference between voting for UB or not voting at all or Ltte boycott. All are wasted votes, the only precious thing we have to hit back to our politicians.

If you are so confused talk to several other Tamils and decide. They say 10 heads are better than one.

As for me i always believe in swimming with the tide, not against it, so i will be looking to pick the winner. Otherwise again it is a wasted vote.

DBSJ RESPONDS:

People need not be pushed into making false choices. It takes great inner strength to vote for someone on principle rather than expediency. I can fully well understand the repugnance and revulsion many people have for Rajapakse and Fonseka.There is no need for people like you to force them to vote for one or the other.

If they want they can vote for Vickramabahu Karunaratne or Siritunga Jayasuriya or Wije Dias (all leftists) and UB Wijekoon. As a decent human being UBW is far ahead of the two war criminals Mahinda and Sarath

Why must people always be on the winning side? Why should they vote for only one of the potential winners? Why cant they vote for someone they like and respect even if that person wont become the President? Why must they be pressganged into voting for someone they dislike and disrespect simply because that person has the chance of winning?

I am very happy that Maheswari will be voting for an underdog rather than one of the two top dogs

I am also happy that my writing about UBW has influenced her decision

I have deleted your sentences calling the commentator a donkey. Thats unacceptable

By the way Jesus Christ rode on the lowly donkey to ride to Jerusalem with his disciples

Also if I were in Colombo and eligible to vote I would have voted for UB Wijekoon or Siritunga Jayasuriya

UBW because he is a good man and has ideas close to my heart. I would love some of those to become reality

Siritunga because he was courageous to stand by the families of Tamils who disappeared during the Mahinda-Gota – Sarath militaristic reign of terror. It is indeed sad that people like Mano Ganesan are supporting Sarath who himself had a hand in some of those abductions instead of being with Siritunga who expressed solidarity and faced the opprressive might of the state when it crushed Tamils

I also respect Comrade Bahu who has consistently stood for the right of Tamil self -determination.. But he has put me off by aligning with that despicable politician called MK Sivajilingam

One last thing

Even if Tamils vote for MR or SF it wont matter in the long run. Tamil plight will continue

I was very confused about who to vote for as I dont like both Mahinda and Sarath

Your article on Mr. Ukku Banda Wijekoon helped me a lot in deciding

I am going to vote for the Palapalam or Jak fruit

I wint use my second preference vote

I know UBW wont win but I want to vote for him because of this article

DBSJ RESPONDS:

Sivakumaran

The late Thiyagarajah Maheswaran alias “Manenney” Maheswaran was a profiteer from war and a colossal fraud. He created two records by winning in Jaffna for UNP after 48 years and being the first Sri Lankan Tamil MP from Colombo

But he was a typical example of the undesirable elements who rose to prominence in Tamil politics due to impact of the long war

I wrote two articles about Maheswaran and his fraudulent activities in “The Sunday Leader” in 2002 when Maheswaran was alive and a non-cabinet minister in the UNP. I exposed a lot of his corrupt activity when he was hale and hearty and a powerful politician. Just as I criticised the LTTE when it was powerful and I criticise the govt when it is powerful

I asked the Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunga to invite Maheswaran to defend himself by responding to my article. I did not want to ask him for his side of the story before writing because I knew he would be alerted and use his UNP contacts to pressure Lasantha into stopping me from writing. To his credit Lasantha published the articles without any cuts and told me jokingly the fellow will now start pestering me and cry.

When Lasantha asked him to respond Maheswaran declined.He candidly confessed to Lasantha that the contents of my article were irrefutable and that he would only get into deeper trouble if he tried to challenge it

Maheswaran begged Lasantha not to carry anymore articles about him and wanted Lasantha to set up a telephone conversation with me. I refused and asked Lasantha to tell Maheswaran to write and send anything he wanted to me. This Maheswaran didn’t want to as he did not want to put anything down in writing

Later when Maheswaran was in Canada he tried his best to meet me through some relatives of his who were known to me. I firmly refused as people like Maheswaran were the scum of the earth and abhorrent to me

After the articles appeared a lot of people contacted me with information about more of Maheswaran’s sordid deals and corruption. Unfortunately I could not write more because Lasantha requested me not to write further on the subject

I wrote about the UBW forgery in that article too. It is an incontrovertible fact

I mentioned that in passing in this article about UBW. Its very funny to see people like you being indignant and defending the indefensible

If I want to vilify Maheswaran I can write much more than this. He was a disgraceful hypocrite who spoke out in Parliament like a Tamil hero and engaged in commercial deals with the Govt by sucking up to Rajapakse bros on the sly. He was even involved in the arms trade. The late Jeyaraj Fernandopulle exposed him in Parliament and “kerosene” cringed into silence

When he was killed I wrote about him again. I dont write about him now because he is dead. Had I wanted to I could write so much about this pathetic specimen of Tamil humanity.Please dont provoke me

Today his family is busily doing business with the elements who had him killed. What a nasty , money-crazy lot

By the way Journalism is more a vocation than profession to me

However, I do not see any of the power hungry politicians wanting to adopt this.

Now it is survival of the fittest.

Even if UBW won by some rare chance every one around him is corrupt and will never allow him to put these ideas into practice.

Uplifting and inspiring to read about Ukku Banda Wijekoon’s Utopian vision

I think Govt trying to steal Swarajya movement ideas for Grama sabhas and Buddhi sabhas but unable to present them properly because ideas are stolen from Swarajya

Pathetic

Establishing a system of governance that returns power to the people and makes their representatives more accountable is not ‘romanticizing the rural areas’.

Sri Lanka has had 60 yrs of top down government which has disempowered people so much that we have had a 30 year war waged because one section of society felt this was the only course available to them to allow them to self-govern. Not to mention 2 major armed insurrections.

Read, reflect and discuss what is proposed by Mr Wijekoon before dismissing it. I don’t claim what he says should be accepted with blind faith, only that we should give it a chance by seriously discussing it’s pros and figuring ways to address it’s cons.

Sri Lanka is at a crucial juncture in it’s history and I think that if we truly love our motherland we must put serious thought into what we want for the future. Replacing one lot unaccountable politicians with another lot whose proposals promise a minor variation of the same policies doesn’t involve much thinking!