Anger in Mahinda Rajapaksa stronghold: Voted for them, see what they did
IN THE small fishing city of Tangalle, 200 km from Colombo, Carlton, the ancestral residence of Sri Lanka’s ruling household, was once thronged by adoring guests at any time when Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa visited.
The temper has modified.
“In 2009, when he finished the war against the LTTE and came here, we were proud. We went to Carlton and like we do for the Buddha, we did the same for him,” stated Roshan, a tuk-tuk driver ready for passengers within the native market.
“But if I meet him now, I will say, ‘thank you very much for finishing the war, but if you can’t do anything now, please hand over the job to someone better’,” stated the 39-year-old father of 1.
Explaining the greenback squeeze that has led to crippling shortages of important commodities and an unaffordable rise in costs, Roshan stated: “When I have 2 kg of rice at home, and 1 kg gets over, I know I have to buy 1 kg to replace it. But they waited till all the dollars were finished.”
In Colombo, Saturday noticed tens of hundreds converge at Galle Face, the capital’s principal ocean entrance.
(Express/Nirupama Subramanian)
Until just a few months in the past, it might have been troublesome, if not not possible, to search out anybody with a foul opinion of the Rajapaksas on this household pocket borough. In 2015, after Mahinda’s shock defeat within the presidential elections, tearful supporters greeted him on this village and pledged to deliver him again to energy. But it appears that evidently even right here, individuals have run out of persistence.
Last week, round 200 native college students weren’t as well mannered as Roshan in expressing their discontent. Shouting “Go Gota Go” in opposition to Mahinda’s brother President Gotabaya, they marched down the street in the direction of Carlton. They broke by the yellow barricades and rushed in the direction of the home till the police used teargas and water cannons to disperse them.
Today, Carlton is guarded by a posse of armed policemen, in addition to the Special Task Force, an elite anti-terrorist paramilitary, with barricades on the prepared.
Hambantota district, which incorporates Tangalle, despatched three Rajapaksas to Parliament — Mahinda’s son Namal, his brother Chamal and nephew Ajith — and three others from the identical get together. It gave Gotabaya 66 per cent of votes within the 2019 presidential election. But right now, the discontent with the primary household is all too evident.
“I also voted for the Rajapaksas,” stated a girl who was standing in a queue exterior the government-run Sathosa truthful worth store in Hambantota city in a courageous try to top off for the native new 12 months on April 14. “We have to manage with what little we get,” she stated.
“No feeling for New Year,” stated a teenaged lady on the store. Her mom’s face wrinkled on the point out of Rajapaksa. “It’s sad. I voted for them and look at what they have done to us,” she stated, pointing to her meagre buy of rice.
Milani Hareem, who contested the Hambantota municipal council elections as an Opposition candidate, stated giant numbers of Rajapaksa supporters have been rethinking their selection.
“This is their stronghold. There will always be supporters of the Rajapaksas here. But now, with the country in this situation, they are seeing the anger of the people, and they don’t want to be seen on the wrong side. We can’t predict how they will vote if an election is held, but the Rajapaksas are not as popular at this moment,” stated Hareem, who belongs to the Malay Muslim neighborhood, a small ethnic group with a major presence in Hambantota.
“The people have now understood that you cannot run a country by dividing them over language, race and religion,” she stated. Unlike another components of the nation with a sizeable Muslim inhabitants, Hambantota had not seen any communal incident, she stated.
Hambantota city, 40 km from Tangalle, is the district headquarters, the place the Rajapaksas first displayed their partiality for big-ticket infrastructure initiatives that may flip into white elephants and drain the nation’s assets.
Hareem recalled how Mahinda Rajapaksa had stated that he would construct a metropolis that may be “no less than Colombo”, however ended with wasteful expenditure.
Among them is the controversial Hambantota worldwide port, which the federal government ended up leasing to its Chinese builders to repay the development loans. Also on that record is the Mattala airport and a conference centre, which was constructed to host official capabilities however is now being employed out principally for weddings.
Perhaps, essentially the most used of all these infrastructure initiatives is the Chinese-built four-lane expressway from Colombo to Hambantota, and the worldwide cricket stadium, the place matches are held repeatedly.
Sithy Sabeena Rezik, a member of Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which contested the 2019 presidential and 2020 parliamentary elections as alliance companions of the Rajapaksas, stated she is now telling supporters that SLFP is now not a part of the tie-up.
“We are helpless to do anything for the people at this moment. I feel really guilty about that. We can hardly show our faces to our supporters,” she stated.
In Tangalle, in response to the protests, some Rajapaksa supporters have been seen close to Carlton, holding placards that say: “We want Gota”. But Roshan, the tuk-tuk driver, just isn’t impressed: “They are people who have been given jobs by the Rajapaksas. They have no choice but to come and show their support.”
