Government –side feeling lonely without Prabhakaran

"Realizing this at one point, the president’s side did try to create the phantom of the Tiger by talking of a treacherous agreement with Sambandan. Much of propaganda portrayed Sambandan, as the new Tiger."
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By Citizen Somapala

(January 25, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The government side in this election seem to be feeling very lonely without Prabakaran. Had he been alive the government would have had almost all its present opponents supporting Mahinda. It would have been easy to fight lonely Ranil Wicramasinghe, who could easily have been described as the traitor that was eager to give the nation to the Tiger. The death of the Tiger seem to make Mahinda and his brother Gotabaya even more, very, very disadvantaged.

The old fox J.R and Chandrika, who learned all his tricks, made sure that their enemy was kept alive. They knew that if the Tiger was absent, they had no way to shout, “Danger under the bush”. To keep people crazy, so that they might even forget about stomachs and forgive rulers just about everything, the Tiger had to be kept alive. If the LTTE did not plant bombs others could be found, and made, to do this, to keep everyone alert. Now that everyone knows the Tiger is truly dead, there is no more room for such old tricks.

Realizing this at one point, the president’s side did try to create the phantom of the Tiger by talking of a treacherous agreement with Sambandan. Much of propaganda portrayed Sambandan, as the new Tiger. But, to make a panda appear as a tiger is no easy task. Even with all the media in one’s hand, Mahinda’s cry of “Tiger, Tiger”, failed to create the impression that Pabakaran has risen from the dead.

A few times Mahinda turned to his former commander, shouting “Tiger, Tiger”. That only created humour rather than fear. Mahinda might naturally think that Fonseka defeated the Tiger so that he could destroy Mahinda politically.