Does President Sirisena Require A Professional Speech Writer?
By Darshanie Ratnawalli –July 26, 2015
Darshanie Ratnawalli
The sixth Executive President has become known for his note-less, teleprompter-less, stream of consciousness style of speechifying. Reports suggest that in the aftermath of the controversial ‘I have nothing to do with Mahinda’ speech, the need for some sort of notes has occurred to his political allies and even to the President himself. According to some Sunday political commentaries he admitted to Ranil Wickremesinghe in a telephone conversation that even things he hadn’t planned to say came out.
In this speech the President forgot to hold up the official version that after assuming office he had met the former President only twice. After starting to say at 25.31 of the speech, “as all of you know, Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa and I met three times” Sirisena seems to recollect the official version and proceeds to validate only the first two meetings through description. After hearing the revelation ‘three times’ a viewer’s excitement would mount because media reports of the third meeting had been firmly denied by both parties earlier. He or she would listen breathlessly between 25.31 and 28.58, only to be disappointed when the President moves on to another topic after saying that the second meeting concluded without any result.
The second inadvertent revelation by President Sirisena comes around 39.53 in his speech when he declares “Mahinda Rajapaksa who was defeated on January 8th will be defeated again.” Less than a minute later however there is a seeming contradiction when Sirisena makes the definitive prediction (40.48-41.04) that if Rajapaksa and Co “did not receive nominations from the UPFA they will come to Parliament from another party. And that coming to parliament cannot be stopped.” There seems to be a certain attempt (perhaps unconscious) in the English translation provided by the President’s Media Division to dilute the definitiveness of this statement when they translate “ethakota sandhanayen nama yojana nolebuna nam e golla wenath pakshekin parlimenthu enawa. Ethakota e parlimenthuwata ena eka walakwanna behe” as “if they did not receive nominations from the UPFA still they could have contested from another party and come to Parliament and it could not have been stopped.”
