President speaks out - EDITORIAL

16 July 2015 03:35 am - 0 - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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President Maithripala Sirisena, in a one- hour-long message to the nation on Tuesday, announced he would remain neutral in the campaign for the August 17 General Election and urged the Elections Commissioner, the police and public servants to ensure that the polls were free, fair and peaceful. However, he has left room for those opposing him to question as to how neutral he would remain since the message he delivered was a strong attack on the former President who is now a candidate for the election from the very party that President Sirisena leads!

The President through his message made an effort to console those who were puzzled and perplexed by what had happened during the past few weeks. He cleared the air and refuted charges made by those who earlier supported him that he had betrayed the January 8 mandate. The President vowed that he would not allow anybody to turn back the change brought about since he took office. The President said more than 6.2 million voters had given him a powerful mandate to usher in a new era and a culture of good governance and democracy, social justice, accountability and transparency. He repeated and reiterated that no one would be allowed to sabotage or derail the process of transformation which had raised the country’s image to its highest level.

In his simple manner, the President revealed some details about what was happening in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). He said he had decided to dissolve Parliament on June 27 when he learnt that a large number of Rajapaksa loyalists were planning a no-faith motion. The plan, he said was to move and approve the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and thereafter get a National List parliamentarian to resign, bring former President Mahinda Rajapaksa back to Parliament and make him the Prime Minister. He told those who earlier attacked him that he saved the Prime Minister and the UNP by dissolving the Parliament. President Sirisena, in a scathing attack on the Rajapaksa loyalists said he thought it was not correct that Mahinda Rajapaksa who had been the President for two terms was trying to come back to power through the backdoor, without retiring gracefully as other Executive Presidents had done. He said that there were experienced and mature leaders in the SLFP or the UPFA and it was unfortunate that Mr. Rajapaksa was trying to come back.

Speaking about what took place in the SLFP and the UPFA after the dissolution of Parliament, the President said the Rajapaksa loyalists had at one point demanded that Mr. Rajapaksa be nominated as the prime ministerial candidate, the group leader and as the head of the nomination board. The President said that he had flatly rejected all these demands but there was a growing revolt with more than 90 percent of the SLFP MPs and the leaders of all parties in the UPFA supporting Mr. Rajapaksa.
The President said he had two options in this crisis. One was to resign as the leader of the SLFP and the UPFA. But if he did that, he believed that the Rajapaksa loyalists would have acted to elect Mr. Rajapaksa as the leader of the SLFP and the UPFA. The Rajapaksa supporters had also warned him if Mahinda Rajapaksa was not given nomination, they would form another alliance with a different symbol and contest the elections. Therefore he had been in a position similar to that of being between the devil and the deep blue sea.

President Sirisena said that also would have been bad for the country because if the SLFP – UPFA group was split down the middle, it might have paved the way for the new United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) to get a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The President pointed out that the worst periods for the country were between 1977 and 1989 and later from 2010 to 2015 when the ruling alliance had a two-thirds majority. He did not want such a third disaster for Sri Lanka and therefore he urged the people to vote for MPs who would cooperate with him in carrying forward the January 8 mandate.

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President speaks out - EDITORIAL

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