SL lost its credibility after recent political turmoil: Kiriella

Sri Lanka had been a model to other countries during the past two years but due to arbitrary acts, we lost that in a short period of time, Minister Lakshman Kiriella said addressing the media today after assuming duties as the Minister of Public Enterprise, Kandyan Heritage and Kandy Development.

However, we would be able to turn it back. All of them thought that the UNPers would join and follow other parties after removing Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe from his post or after breaking the party apart. 

"If we allow the President with his executive powers to appoint a Prime Minister, future presidents would tend to appoint every Prime Minister according to his choice. That's why we struggled in Parliament to establish proper precedence to elect a Prime Minister who has a majority in parliament. If we had endorsed the President's action this would provide bad precedence to the future generation," the Minister said.

It has been forty years since the introduction of the post of Executive Presidency and no Supreme Court has stood against the decisions taken by an Executive President in that time. Due to recent political conflicts, our country had gone back. Therefore, we’ve lost people's faith and trust. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)

Video by Damith