Animal Palm
The Presidential Election in Sri Lanka, whew!
Were the voters mostly sheep, goats, lions with some tigers prowling about? Especially those who voted for MS?
Well let us see.
MR received about 300 thousand votes less than he did in 2010 while the voter base increased by almost a million to over 15 million. There would have been more new voters than the simple difference between the voter base between 2015 and 2010 due to replacement of those who died during the intervening five years, those who left the country to work or those who simply went away. It seems that about 40% of the Buddhist voters who turned up voted for MS. Over 90% of those who voted for MR are most likely to be Buddhists. From the outset analysts surmised that the overwhelming majority of Hindus, Islamic and Christians would vote against MR and that he had to seek a large majority of the Buddhist vote. He did receive it but not enough of it to win.
In some Buddhist areas of Sri Lanka, MR received less votes in 2015 than in 2010, e.g. Galle, Kurunegala, Anuradapura, Polonnaruwa and Kegalla. It is likely that the non-Buddhists there turned out more strongly than before and voted more intensely for MS. But MR got more votes this time in predominantly Hindu Jaffna.
Without more information it is difficult to conclude how many of those who voted for MR were lions, tigers, sheep or goats.
More people turned up to vote this time in every electorate. And the proportion of the vote for MR declined even in his back yard. People of Islamic faith had signaled their intent very clearly, they were isolated, and MR had not assured them of their physical safety.
My own impression is that monkeys played an important hand in this election, the swing! The swing!
Hence, Animal Palm!
Meanwhile some are screaming fowl! But who is chicken now? Chicken little? MS?
“…. after that everything will be different, but worse. We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who’ll take our place will be the little jackals and hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals and sheep, we’ll all go on thinking our selves the salt of the earth.” [1]
[1] Giuseppe Di Lampedusa. The Leopard. Pantheon Books New York. 1960
Shokku Masta's Blog 
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At the end of the race, a mere 364,100 votes prevented the Lion King from achieving yet another victory, despite the magnificent effort on his part and despite the equally magnificent effort on the part of The Goat.
The Mountain Gazelle from the East that is the West (Note : Check National Animals on Wikipedia) had trained The Goat in the fine art of dividing the Lions from the other animals in the Palm by the use of terror tactics. But this message obviously did not appeal to at least 364,100 Lions and Lionesses.
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Thank you for the comment. Camels do travel far in difficult terrain. The margin of victory for MS contains many types of voters however we classify them. MR was short of the 50% of the valid votes cast by 293,000. And if one type voted more intensively for him, yes, win! But not necessarily that they be Lions. Now can we be sure that all who voted for MR were Lions? Not that easy, but if we simply classify them as Lions, then all the Lions are on one side. And as in nature the sheep, goats and animals that Lions eat are a numerical majority. To keep nature “going” Lions should be within some numerical margin compared to other animals. My question is where do the house cats figure in this all?
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