The Great Betrayal!
On 8 January 2015, the people in Sri Lanka faced the most critical question about the future of our country since independence. Were the voters to support the existing regime for a dictatorial establishment which would be run by one family and their close supporters or a democratic leader supported by various political parties and civil societies to re-build a Democratic, Compassionate, Peaceful, Law abiding and Sovereign nation in the coming years? A total of 6.2m voters of all races Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims, Burghers, Malay and of all religions Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Catholics, and Anglicans had answered the critical question in favour of Mr. Maithripala Sirisena, the common candidate, to become the 7th Executive President of The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the United National Party was appointed as the Prime Minister to lead a coalition government. The nation placed their trust and pinned their hopes that the President and the Prime Minister would overcome the challenges and change the existing political culture to fulfil the promises given in the presidential and general elections, to create a decent peaceful human society in Sri Lanka.
Apology for Poor Performance
After 3 years of slow progress on many critical issues, the coalition partners, the SLFP and the UNP suffered a humiliating defeat at the recently concluded Local Government (LG) elections. The Hon. Prime Minister has publicly apologised to the nation and his party supporters for their party’s mediocre performance in the LG elections due to mistakes made during the last 3 years. He has given an assurance that he would change the direction and take decisive actions to correct the mistakes made by him and his party’s cabinet colleagues. Though the Hon. Prime Minister had failed to make significant changes to his existing cabinet, he had proposed one important change to his cabinet. He had nominated Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka to lead the Ministry of Law and Order. It was long overdue because the Ministry of Law and Order had received severe public criticism for its ineffective ways of dealing with crucial matters of public interest. But the request had been rejected by the Hon. President for no apparent reason. I believe that the nation is entitled to know the reasons for the Hon. President’s refusal to appoint Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka to the post of Minister for Law and Order, as proposed by the Prime Minister.
The general secretary of the SLFP, Minister Duminda Dissanayake has also publicly apologised for their mistakes during the last 3 years after the LG elections. But, as far as I know, the Hon. President has not apologised to the nation and his party supporters for the disastrous performance by the SLFP in the LG elections. Instead of doing so, he has tried to replace the Hon. Prime Minister with someone else from his own party (SLFP), assuming his party’s humiliated defeat in the LG elections was due to the UNP leader Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Like many other people, without analysing the real reasons for the SLFP’s appalling defeat in the LG elections, the Hon. President was quick to embrace the “blame culture” and wanted to replace the Prime Minister who is the leader of the main partner in the coalition government. As the leader of the UNP Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe is entitled to be the Prime Minister of the coalition government unless he is replaced by the membership as the leader of the UNP. The Hon. President and other outsiders have no right to interfere with the internal matters of the UNP. It would have been much more productive and logical if the Hon. President had looked at his and his SLFP cabinet colleagues’ performance during the last 3 years before he had taken steps to remove the Prime Minister.
