Why The Pāda Yātrā Had Only One Objective
By Shyamon Jayasinghe –August 4, 2016
Shyamon Jayasinghe
“The Yahapaalana government must realise one thing, namely that freedom and liberty has a way of consuming itself”
Plainly, and demonstrably the Pāda Yātrā led by the so-called Joint Opposition (JO) had just one purpose. This was to frighten those who are entrusted with investigating the serious charges for murder, embezzlement and abuse against Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family and against the second line of leaders. Pāda Yātrā was a campaign of the accused and the impugned.This is evident from the fact that the campaign had ‘political witch hunting,’ as one of its vociferous slogans. This witch – hunting referred to the investigations ongoing and yet to come. Curiously, during the very first few months of the Yahapālana (YP) government these first rung and second rung leaders mocked and challenged the government to come out with the findings related to alleged corruption. JO told the nation that the government was conning. On the other hand,now, when the investigations are getting into shape and when arrests are being made the JO accuses the government of witch hunting. Not-doing is wrong and doing is also wrong!
True, there were other slogans, mainly relating to the rise in the cost of living and the proposed VATincreases. These slogans are merely being dragged in to provoke the people who now face the burden of the increase in cost of living. The economic slogans are mass -mobilisation – slogans. JO cannot be serious about these problems because they know only too well that their ten year long dispensation had created the crisis. Indiscriminate debt, wasteful profligacy, corruption, absurd White Elephant projects had all brought about a serious crisis at the time of the fall of the Rajapaksa government. Here is an extract of a report pertaining to the state of the economy after the YP government came to office. Obviously, the negative outcomes were products of the Rajapaksa government. The report is by Professor A.D.V. de S .Indraratna – independent and respected economist:
Read More“We have been experiencing,” says professor Indraratna, “falling current revenue relative to current expenditure and bludgeoning budget deficits rising to unsustainable levels on the one hand, and a crippling public debt and unsustainable external debt burden on the other hand, in the face of sluggish inflow of FDI. There has been agreement among the enlightened economics analysts that every effort should be made to increase current revenue while containing current expenditure, and to decrease the debt burden so as to halve the 2015 Budget deficit before the end of this decade.
