Party top brass ready for smooth sailing

The meeting between the President and the Opposition Leader was significant since it has taken place for the first time, after the MoU between the two parties was signed in October 2006. The following are the comments made by the top brass of the two parties after the meeting.

Last week President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe officially met to discuss several issues in relation to the APRC proposals, to solve the national problem. During the discussions Mr. Wickremesinghe extended his fullest support to the Government in implementing the 13th Amendment. How do you see this?

Minister Maithripala Sirisena - General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party: The Opposition Leader Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe attended the meeting with the invitation from the President Mahinda Rajapaksa. It was a very cordial discussion. The President discussed with the opposition leader on the importance of support to find a lasting solution to the national problem we are facing, temporarily keeping aside the political ideologies of the two parties. Particularly the support of the opposition to implement the 13th Amendment in giving a solution to the problems faced by people of the North and the East. Wickremesinghe clearly said that they are fully supporting implementing the 13th Amendment. But we conveyed to Wickremesinghe that some members of the UNP have publicly stated that they do not support the 13th Amendment.

Rukman Senanayake M.P. - Chairman of the United National Party: The meeting was on the implementation of the 13th Amendment actually. The President invited our leader for a discussion and as a result he met the President. I think that this is a very positive step. 13th Amendment was born during a UNP led Government but due to various reasons it was not implemented properly. So we are duty bound to give the fullest support to implement the 13th Amendment. Wickremesinghe categorically said that he supports the 13th Amendment unconditionally. Now the Government has to pave the forward path. To my knowledge none of our Members of Parliament has spoken against this implementation.

The Public and even many political critics emphasise that a consensus between the UPFA and UNP is very essential. The two parties hold almost 80% of the total vote bank. What is your comment on this?

Minister Maithripala Sirisena: I'm in support of it as well. Because this is a national issue. As a democratic country the main two parties do have a huge role to play. I totally agree with you. The main two parties should get together. That is why we went to sign an MoU with the United National Party, and carry forward this process towards a lasting solution. But unfortunately it failed. We invite the UNP to act with us to bring a lasting solution to the national problem.

Rukman Senanayake M.P.: I have been advocating this since the 1980's. When we were signing the MoU with the Government we were actually thinking on those lines. There we extended our fullest cooperation to the Government. But due to some elements, who wanted to disturb the UNP rather than progressing on the MoU, this broke down. We gave our fullest support. It was certain elements in the Government that wanted to break down the UNP and withdraw some of our members. That short-sighted policy destroyed the whole approach.

Do you think the 13th Amendment, itself will be sufficient to solve the national issue? How do you explain this?

Minister Maithripala Sirisena: Well, if we give a 100% solution it might not work properly. For example a doctor would not prescribe a strong dose of medicine for an illness at first. A solution should be implemented gradually. We should take in to consideration whether the other seven provinces are satisfied with the 13th Amendment. We cannot expect this to be a total solution for the North and the East. But we must start the process from one point. That is a must.

Rukman Senanayake M.P.: That conclusion should come from the people who are affected by the problem. Some may say this is not enough or totally useless. It is more of a positive measure to move forward. May be the final solution might reject this amendment. But this can be a good start. The final outcome should come through the APRC proposals.

Time to time, political leaders talked about new political cultures, where they agreed to work together irrespective of their party colours. Why had the politicians failed to implement such an agenda for the betterment of the nation?

Minister Maithripala Sirisena: This has been a problem throughout the history. It happened to the Bandaranaike - Chelvanayakam pact, then to the Dudley Senanayake - Chelvanayakam pact. If these were given more focus we would never see a LTTE. Ignoring these two pacts was the main cause in creating people like Prabhakaran. Some are strongly protesting the devolution of power.

But the only method to prevent the country breaking apart the only solution is devolution of power. We are all duty bound to make this happen. Whatever the challenges we are facing we need to move forward targeting a final solution. In the year 2000, During President Chandrika Bandaranaike's time the proposal to change the constitution also faced a similar consequence. Yes, we have seen many failures. But that does not mean we should put a full stop to the process. The efforts should be made again and again.

Rukman Senanayake M.P.: I saw the MoU signed between us and the governing party as a major breakthrough. Some members in the Government were more interested in breaking up the UNP rather than addressing the main issue. If we take the issues of the past the Bandaranaike - Chelvanayakam pact was opposed by the UNP and later the Senanayake - Chelvanayakam pact was opposed by the SLFP. Political party representation should be there in a democratic system. And elections should be held to protect the sovereignty of the people. The understandings between the political parties start working after the elections.

Do you say that the earlier regimes performed well compared to the present Government? Particularly the regimes after 1977?

Minister Maithripala Sirisena: The political and economic strategies employed after 1977 were all erroneous. These resulted in a huge breakdown in the political, cultural, social and economic structure. The topmost problem that needs to be solved is the election system of the country. The system does not support the pure representation of the public. The significance of this Government is the focus we have given to uplift the local production and economy. This did not happen in the times of the Government that came to power after 1977. Exposing our country to the open economy in 1977 is the main cause for the inflation and the high living cost we are facing currently.

Rukman Senanayake M.P.: Yes they did. I like to put it this way. When a Government is formed with a coalition of different parties with contradicting ideologies those parties would start pulling in different directions making it difficult to come to a conclusion. This happened in 1956, 1970 and so on. So the aims or the targets gets diverted from the main path. But the UNP did not face this problem. Even now, though we are also in a coalition, the two parties' ideologies do not differ drastically.

Do you believe that the country is experiencing a period of political insecurity?

Minister Maithripala Sirisena: There is no political insecurity as such. This should be clearly stated. But there is a threat from terrorism to the democratic political system. If someone sees or feels insecurity the cause is purely the terrorist threat from the LTTE. When the Government is trying to secure the people from such threats the defence expenditure would definitely rise. This is not healthy for the country's economy. People will feel helpless at such instances. But if we are to find a total solution, we as a nation need to make some commitments. The threat we are facing at present is terrorism against a democratic Government.

Rukman Senanayake M.P.: Well I think we are more in a political turmoil. Because we do not know what is going to happen next. The war has encroached on the entire nation. Our very own existence is at stake now. With all these problems we are in a very troublesome time. We feel insecure but this is more than insecurity. Huge expenses are needed for the security. Yet we cannot blame the Government for that. They have to protect the country. But we are facing crises from all side.

There is an accusation against the Opposition leader for setting deadlines for military achievements. What is your comment on this?

Minister Maithripala Sirisena: The Government or any one representing it or even the military leaders have not said anything setting deadlines. We must understand what this LTTE is. A person in faking sleep is very difficult to wake up.

Wickremesinghe knows the LTTE very well. May be better than anyone else. The UNP states that if the Government fails to solve the problem by March they will start agitating against the Government. But the real role of the opposition would be to support the government towards finding a final solution to the problem the nation is facing. And we all request him to do so.

Rukman Senanayake M.P.: I do not think he has set deadlines. It is the Government that has set these timeliness. They continued saying they would end the war in one month, two months, end of March, November etc. But we insist that all the other paths in finding a lasting solution should not be closed solely focusing on the military strategies. Military strategies are reactions to actions threatening the security. Those cannot be a solution. We are not a party trying to obstruct the process. What we are trying to do is exposing the hypocrisy of the whole issue. It will be a non-violent protest.