Race is neck and neck<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIn a one to one meeting with Polchief, President Rajapaksa\u2019s chief opinion pollster and close advisor Sunimal Fernando said their polling figures less than a week before the presidential election indicated the race statistically was a dead heat\u201d US Ambassador Patricia A. Butenis wrote in a confidential cable to Washington.<\/p>\n 80% says Mahinda is corrupt and 85% says his family is corrupt<\/p><\/div>\n Colombo Telegraph found the cable in the WikiLeaks database and it was classified \u201cCONFIDENTIAL\u201d by Ambassador Butenis. The cable written on 22nd\u00a0January, 2010, under the name \u201cRAJAPAKSA POLLSTER SAYS RACE IS NECK AND NECK\u201d, further says \u201cundecided voters were at an unprecedented 17 percent, with six percent leaning toward Rajapaksa and eleven percent towards Fonseka. Fernando said the President was doing very poorly in the East, mainly due to the corruption issue, but surprising well in the North. In the Western region, which includes Colombo and its suburbs, Fonseka had been doing well in the city (75 to 25 percent) but recently had begun to slip following television interviews and Rajapaksa\u2019s position was stronger in the Colombo suburbs.<\/p>\n Eight GAs were ordered to send the results to President\u2019s house<\/strong><\/p>\n The very same day the US Ambassador sent another cable to Washington stating \u201cThe president\u2019s campaign had ordered eight GA\u2019s including those in Ampara, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa to send election results directly to the president\u2019s house for his review before sending them to the Election Commissioner.\u201d \u201c80% says Mahinda is corrupt and 85% says his family is corrupt\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Another cable shows what Dr. Sunimal Fernando said just after the election campaign started. I am not a yes \u2013 man<\/p><\/div>\n These initial responses indicated that potential voters had little interest in the symbolic issues\u201d US Ambassador Butenis wrote to Washington. Commissioner\u2019s bizarre speech was clear evidence<\/strong><\/p>\n In another confidential cable written by Ambassador Butenis on 1st of February 2010 said to Washington \u201cthe Elections Commissioner told poloff on January 28 that he was retiring by February 1, whether the president accepted it or not. \u2026 Post contacted his office on February 1 and learned he had come in to the office for<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/wikileaks-colombo-telegraph2.jpg\" "\\"Wikileaks-colombo")
<\/a>W<\/strong>e all know the level at which Sri Lankan politics stand. So what do we learn from WikiLeaks? The question, as with virtually everything else to do with the leaks, was polarising. There was, from the start, a metropolitan yawn from bien pensants<\/em> who felt they knew it all.
\nArabs do not like Iran? The Russian government is corrupt? Some African countries are kleptocracies? Go on, astonish us. You will be telling us next that the Pope is Catholic. According to this critique the disclosure stated the obvious and amounted to no more than \u201chumdrum diplomatic pillow talk\u201d. (This was from the London Review of Books. Academic Glen Newey said he was unimpressed by the revelation that French leader Nicolas Sarkozy \u201cis a short man with a Napoleon complex\u201d.) This served as fuel for the argument that there was no public interest in leaked cables.
\nWhat this argument missed was the hunger for these cables in countries that did not have fully functioning democracies or the sort of free expression enjoyed in London, Paris or New York. This was as powerful a case for the WikiLeaks disclosers as any. It was not particularly edifying to see western commentators and politicians decrying public interest in the publication of information which was being avidly, even desperately, sought after by far off countries of which they doubtless knew little. Who was to say what effect these disclosures would have, even if, on one level, they were revealing things that were in some sense known? The very fact of publication often served as authentication and verification of things that were suspected.
\nThere are 251,287 internal US State Department communiqu\u00e9s, sent from 280 embassies and consulates in 180 countries. Hundreds of journalists around the world have access to WikiLeaks unpublished data and are digging through the cables day and night. Among them were frank and often unflattering assessments of world leaders, analysis, much of it good quality; as well as comments, reports of meetings, summations and gossip. But more importantly they included disclosures of things citizens are entitled to know.
\nIn this context the Colombo Telegraph website, an exile journalism initiative started to break important stories they found on the WikiLeaks database. Last week colombotelgraph.com published some important cables related to the Presidential Election in 2010. A sector of Sri Lankan media accused and published that the election was not free and fair based on accusations by the opposition camp. General Fonseka had alleged vote-rigging and had lodged several objections with Sri Lanka\u2019s election commissioner by letter.
\nThere were dozens of accusations.\u00a0 The biggest question was how President Rajapaksa was re- elected by a victory margin of over 1.8 million votes? The opposition camp claimed the government had pulled off a massive, high-tech fraud operation involving the intimidation of opposition voter-counting observers coupled with computer-based fraud at District Secretariat level and at the Election Commissioner\u2019s office.
\nA leaked cable shows what Rajapaksa\u2019s chief pollster and close advisor Dr. Sunimal Fernando thought less than a week before the presidential election. It is worth re-reading the allegations together with Dr. Sunimal Fernando\u2019s statements.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe US Ambassador Patricia A. Butenis and USAID Mission Director met with about ten business representatives from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the Ampara District and made a separate call on Ampara Government Agent Sunil Kannangara less than a week before the presidential election 2010.
\nThe leaked cable classified as a \u201cCONFIDENTIAL\u201d by Ambassador Butenis under the title \u201cELECTIONS IN AMPARA: INTIMIDATION AND WEAK ALLEGIANCES\u201d stated: \u201cBusiness representatives reported that Iniya Barathy, Karuna\u2019s second in command and Rajapaksa campaign coordinator, controlled 600 to 700 armed supporters and had created a climate of intimidation that precluded any expression of support for the opposition. On the other hand, support for Rajapaksa appeared weak\u2026\u201d Ambassador Patricia further wrote.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cPresident Rajapaksa\u2019s chief opinion pollster \u2013 who is a good contact of the embassy on other issues \u2013 shared with us the first findings from their initial survey.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nThe cable, written on 26th December 2009 recounts details of a meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s chief pollster and his close advisor Dr. Sunimal Fernando. Under the sub heading \u201cPRESIDENTIAL POLLSTER SURPRISED BY GOOD FIGURES\u201d the Ambassador wrote \u201cOnly about 10% cared about the president\u2019s creation of a \u201cpatriotic society\u201d after the war or his willingness to stand tall against the west. Also, many voters saw the Rajapaksa family as corrupt (85%) and the president himself as corrupt (80%). Despite all his faults, the pollster claimed, many voters still saw Rajapaksa as a man of action and a man of his word and would vote for him over Fonseka.\u201d
\nPlacing a comment she wrote \u201cthe pollster prides himself on being one of the few figures in the president\u2019s circle who gives him objective information and is not a yes \u2013 man\u2026 we find interesting the very high negatives for the president on corruption and apparent lack of voter interest in Rajapaksa\u2019s standard patriotic issues, which could eat away at the president\u2019s positive figures as the campaign progresses\u201d<\/p>\n