After April 8 General Election:

President to invite all parties to resolve national issues

President Mahinda Rajapaksa said yesterday that soon after the April 8 general election, he would invite all political parties again for deliberations on resolving the national issues. “Soon after these parliamentary elections, I will call all leaders of political parties and start talking to them,” President Rajapaksa told The Hindu in an exclusive interview.

The President reiterated his call to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Muslim parties to join the talks. He said that he had done his best to involve the leaders of the TNA and Muslim parties but “they were not interested in solving this problem as long as [Velupillai] Prabhakaran was there”.

But now it was a wholly new ball game, he said. “Now they must understand that there is no option for them but to talk. I’m the President of the country...they must negotiate with me and have a dialogue with me. If they think they can’t cope with me, new leaders will come up and I will have to deal with them.”

President Rajapaksa reiterated his commitment made in the joint statement of May 23, 2009 between the Sri Lankan Government and the UN “to proceed with the implementation of the 13th Amendment, as well as to begin a broader dialogue with all parties, including the Tamil parties, in the new circumstances to further enhance this process and to bring about lasting peace and development in Sri Lanka.”

“The 13th Amendment is in the Constitution,” he said. “I don’t have to say I’m implementing it, because it has been implemented in other areas. The 13th Amendment is implementable at the moment other than with regard to police powers. The land and everything is implementable. We had the presidential election [in the Northern Province] and we will have the Provincial Council election after this [the parliamentary election on April 8]. I thought I had to resettle the people [first]. Now there are less than 50,000 people in the IDP camps, and many of them don’t want to go.”

President Rajapaksa was confident that the United People’s Freedom Alliance, led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, will win the forthcoming parliamentary elections “very comfortably.” Asked whether his realistic target was a two-thirds majority, he said: “I think we will be able to get that, or at least close to that.”

Was he willing to enter into a constructive cohabitation with the leader of the Opposition and former Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, in the event of the United National Party doing well? “Oh, no problem but he won’t do that! So the situation won’t arise.”

Asked about the circumstances and reasons leading to the arrest of the former Army Commander and Chief of Defence Staff, President Rajapaksa said that much before the presidential election the intelligence agencies were reporting to him on how the General was working to divide the Army and engaging himself in activities prosecutable under military law.

The Army wanted to take him into custody for an inquiry into the serious allegations but “If at that time I had allowed that, they would have said that I was frightened of this man contesting.”

After the election, the President said, the Army wanted to “Take action for what he had done.” He said it was up to the Army, which could go ahead if it had the evidence.

The process was slowed down because Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa was “Very cautious” and did not want any precipitate action against the former Army Commander. President Rajapaksa said that he did not want to get involved in the judicial process, and added that “If I get involved, Army discipline will go for a six.”