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| Sunday, 4 September 2005 |
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Features |  |
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Making Ranil look Sri Lankan by Victor Jayawansa Although Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has continued to disassociate himself from abusive politics and character assassination of political rivals, the pro-UNP media and some vociferous UNP members are leaving no stone unturned in trying to tarnish the Prime Minister's image in the eyes of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim voters. The objective is to project a different image of Mr. Rajapaksa before each ethnic group and religious community, so that all of them would mistrust him as a Presidential Candidate who would undermine their interests if elected. In the process, these critics have found themselves in ludicrous position of portraying the PM as (a) embezzler of tsunami funds (b) a Presidential Candidate who has nothing to offer but flowers at temples (c) a Sinhala Buddhist extremist and simultaneously (d) a supporter of the Roman Catholic Church (because of his wife), all of them rolled into one! It was only recently that an openly pro-UNP Sinhala weekly gave wide prominence to UNP's Hambantota Chief Organiser Sajith Premadasa's accusation that the Prime Minister is a 'Sinhala Buddhist racist'. It was this same paper that earlier strongly focused on Mrs. Rajapaksa's Catholic faith and the PM's cordial relations with church leaders so that the article would raise doubts in the minds of Sinhala Buddhists about the PM's sincerity in pledging to support the Buddha Sasana. Meanwhile, the UNP, according to an English newspaper columnist, is facing a veritable dilemma: "How to make Ranil look Sri Lankan? That man needs complete restructuring ..." Transforming the UNP Presidential Candidate's 'American' personality to make him look a son of the soil is a formidable task the UNP is burdened with. He is the 'national leader' who planned to commemorate this year the 500th Anniversary of the Portuguese encounter in Sri Lanka, on a grand scale. He is perhaps unaware that this is also the 401st year since the death of King Vimaladharmasuriya the First, alias Konappu Bandara who in the nick of time saved this country from becoming a full Portuguese colony - a vassal state of the King of Portugal. (And let me also recall here King Vimaladharmasuriya's marriage to a Catholic - Princess Kusumasana Devi alias Dona Catherina who was brought up by the Portuguese - affected neither his patriotism nor his contribution to the Buddha Sasana in the Kandyan Kingdom) Does Ranil know of any country where the natives would celebrate the beginning of colonial rule - no matter what indirect benefits the people would have reaped from such foreign occupation? And in the case of the Portuguese, they were the worst colonial rulers Sri Lanka ever had. Ranil is the man who led his party to defeat in 12 out of 13 elections. The UNP under his leadership won only the 2001 General Election, and now he is apparently facing a credibility gap regarding his place of birth. Contesting the newly created Biyagama seat in 1977 as a budding politician, Ranil proudly claimed that he hailed from Kelaniya, the seat next to Biyagama. His maternal grandmother was the chief patron of the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara. When Ranil contested Colombo West in the 1994 General Election, he said that he was from Kurunduwatte - Colombo 7. In 2001 when the UNP Leader was engaged in luring some PA members into the UNP camp, he told a MP from Kurunegala, in Parliament Canteen that he (Ranil) and his relatives were from Kurunegala. |
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