Plan to bribe monks to make Gota premier

Friday, 11 July 2014 

A plan is underway to convene 5,000 Buddhist monks to Colombo in the last week of August and get them to say that defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa should be made the next prime minister, Temple Trees sources say. Several monks identified as being politically and socially active are to be bribed under this plan, and a sum of Rs. 2.5 billion has already been collected for the purpose, reports say.

Those who have contributed money include Ravi Wijeratne, Dhammika Perera and Dilith Jayaweera, who are also masterminding this plan. They have been able to convince the president that Gotabhaya is the best person to be appointed the premier, as minister Basil Rajapaksa, who is also eyeing the position, is notorious as a corrupt man and is disliked by Sinhala Buddhists.

Gotabhaya has recently held a meeting of his inner circle of supporters at the home of Dilith Jayaweera.

Worried about this development, Basil Rajapaksa has instructed his clique of advisors, including Dhamma Dissanayake, Ranjith Bandara, Willie Gamage and Charitha Herath, to create a public opinion that Gotabhaya is not suitable for politics.

A top official at the Presidential Secretariat has told a friend of his that the president is following a foolish strategy of resolving through family cronyism the political crisis that had been created due to the very same family cronyism.