Forth Coming Election And An Inclusive Development
By Liyanage Amarakeerthi -December 24, 2014
Dr. Liyanage Amarakeerthi
Maithripala Sirisena’s election manifesto came out on the 19th making a series of promises that are quite appealing to the general public. The MS manifesto had upset the top brasses in the government ranks. They were so upset that they could not come up with any coherent response to it. Within the last two days, many of them, including the president himself and his trusted hired mouth, Wimal Weerawansha, repeated some sections of the MS manifesto indirectly giving it immense publicity. The lack of coordination in responding to the MS manifesto was seen by the two key statements about it.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa argued that it was a copy of his own budget proposals for 2015 and, therefore, he owns the copyrights (He used the word “patent” ) for the MS manifesto. His argument was that the MS manifesto was good because it copied much of what is in the budget. Minister Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, the current secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, claimed in contrast that the MS manifesto has been written by someone who does not have an iota of understanding of an economy suitable for contemporary Sri Lanka. The Internet generation, which seems to be a decisive force in the forthcoming election, immediately pounced on the two statements. The very manifesto the president claims to be plagiarized from his own budget proposals shows a terrible lack of understanding as to what the country needs!! Anura Priyadarshana, as many a minister in the current cabinet, is not known to say cohesive things or things with intellectual substance. But the social media thought that the above statement was a smart move to poke fun at his boss. Some thought it was a smart move by the president to belittle his minister. The belittling of others is something the president is quite known for, and the current constitution allows the president to do exactly that.