Diverse policies – alliance won’t last 100 days - Dr. Amunugama

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

Senior Minister for International Monetary Cooperation and Deputy Finance and Planning Minister Dr. Sarath Amunugama said that the NDF Presidential Candidate Maithripala Sirisena has waxed eloquent on his 100 days. Sirisena and other leaders in the joint opposition know only too well that their alliance won’t last a maximum of 100 days because their policies are so diverse.

When these Opposition parties get together, there will be endless conflicts. Hence all these parties would be unable to get together without disintegrating and they are merely attempting to offer seeni bola to the voter, the Minister told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

Dr. Amunugama said this would be attractive to the so-called Western educated Sri Lankan intellectuals who have never done an honest job in their lives. Many of them are university lecturers, dentists and others who are back in Sri Lanka after retirement. Till they reached the age of retirement, they never felt for Sri Lanka and earned money and educated their children abroad. Now they have returned to Sri Lanka and feel that they could market themselves as patriots in the Opposition.

“This is utter nonsense. They cannot go beyond 100 days. I will be surprised if it goes even up to 100 days.”

The Minister said that the criticism levelled against the President was not done haphazardly. It is a well-planned and well-funded effort.

Their first step is to detach the minorities from the Government.

We should remember that all these minority groups were in the Government and benefited with perks and privileges. They are moving out on a pre-arranged agenda and are not serving the interests of the minorities.

Let us take the two parties of Rauff Hakeem and Rishad Bathiudeen. Their people may be the majority in certain areas in the East but a minority in the rest of the country.

The LTTE with the connivance of all pro-LTTE Tamils drove away the Muslims from the North. while we are working towards reconciliation suddenly some Muslim parties quit the Government. In every Sinhala and Tamil area, the Muslim leadership is opportunistic.

The joint Opposition cannot evolve a common policy for the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. I want to tell these so-called intellectuals in Sri Lanka that if Sirisena is elected, there will be utter chaos.