Common candidate no match for President

by Uditha KUMARASINGHE

Power Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage says whoever contests from the Opposition President Mahinda Rajapaksa will achieve a landslide victory at the forthcoming Presidential Election. According to the Minister the UNP and the JVP are forced to seek a common candidate as they have realised they are not in a position to win at the forthcoming Presidential Election. The Minister in an interview with Sunday Observer outlined his views on the recent developments within the country’s political sector.

Q: How do you view the attempts made by the Opposition to introduce a common candidate at the forthcoming Presidential Election?

A: Seeking a common candidate by the Opposition means the UNP has realised that they cannot win the Presidential Election by fielding their own candidate. The UNP as a reputed political party which has a history of over 50 years and governed this country for so many years has understood that they cannot win an election. In this country, the SLFP or the UNP has the ability of forming a Government.

The JVP always attempts to align with the SLFP or UNP. When analysed all the recently concluded elections, the JVP could obtain only 1.8 percent of total votes. Therefore, the JVP has realised if they put their own candidate, they will obtain less than one percent votes.

This would lead to severe erosion of the JVP. In this situation, the JVP is attempting to safeguard their position. They know after the Presidential Election, a General Election is going to be held. Therefore, the only option for the JVP is to extend their support to the common candidate.

After the common candidate is defeated, the JVP would say they did not contest the Presidential Election and as such request the people to vote them at the General Election. Both the UNP and the JVP are seeking a common candidate to cover up their defeat.

Q: Do you think the alliance formed by the UNP with some other opposition parties would be a challenge to the Government at the forthcoming election?

A: This alliance will never turn into a success. The UNP, JVP, SLMC (Hakeem faction), Western People’s Front and SLFP(M) are the constituent parties of this alliance. They are discussing with the TNA as well. What would be the political manifesto of this alliance at the forthcoming Presidential Election? The TNA would say they want their own homeland by separating the North and the East.

The JVP would say the country cannot be divided and it should be a unitary state. The UNP wants to devolve the power. Rahuff Hakeem would also demand a separate area in the East. The Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe wants to re-introduce his “Regaining Sri Lanka” Program and sell all bankrupt State institutions.

I would like to ask whether the JVP would agree to sell the key State institutions like Bank of Ceylon, People’s Bank, CPC and CEB or divide the country into several parts as claimed by the UNP.

This alliance would never be able to reach any common policy agreement. Therefore, this alliance is a blessing to the Government and the President. The people will respond to this alliance at the next election.

Q: Whoever contests from the Opposition, is the Government confident of a landslide victory at Presidential and General Elections?

A: Definitely. When you compare the overall results of all the recently concluded Provincial Council elections, the Government is ahead of the combined JVP-UNP by 2.5 million votes.

Whoever the Common candidate who contests, can he get all these 2.5 million majority votes onto his side? One of the main pledges of this UNP-led new alliance is to abolish the Executive Presidency within 180 days.

What are they going to do with their common candidate after 180 days? What is the fate of this common candidate? Their intention is very clear. After 180 days, they are going to chase away the common candidate and bring the UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe into power.

That means again the election will be between Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe. Ranil Wickremesinghe is behind the scene. When he is unable to win, they are going to put forward a common candidate.

Q: Even though the Government has pledged to give a pay hike to the public servants in January next year, some trade unions have planned to go for an islandwide strike. Is there a political agenda behind the current wave of strikes? What is your comment?

A: Of course. The Government has pledged to give a pay hike to the public servants with effect from January next year with arrears. Some Trade Unions even demand ten month arrears. The public servants did not demand a pay hike last year following the request made by the President as the Government had reached the final stage to eradicate terrorism. The UNP and the JVP are behind this present wave of strikes.

This trade union action has been launched entirely based on a political agenda. It does not have any ways and means to safeguard the workers rights or trade union rights.

This is an attempt made by the JVP to put the Government into difficulty and bring back Ranil Wickremesinghe into power. At present the Government has given every possible relief to the public servants.

Q: According to you is there any urgent need for abolishing the executive presidency at this juncture as demanded by the UNP and the JVP?

A: Who demands to abolish the Executive Presidency? If not for the Executive Presidency could we have put an end to the war? The demand made by the JVP to abolish Executive Presidency is an attempt to join hands with the UNP. The JVP and the UNP cannot align with each other. Because all the JVP Politburo Members were assassinated during the UNP regime. It was also the UNP which attempted to divide the country and sell all its resources.

Therefore, the UNP has no ability to contract this marriage with the JVP. They have created the issue of executive presidency as the bridge to turn their marriage into a reality. But nobody accepts this and the people are well aware of this UNP-JVP deal.

Q: Do you think there is a conspiracy by some foreign forces to topple this Government?

A: A huge international conspiracy has been hatched to topple this Government. In order to win this war against terrorism, there were two factions.

One faction directly supported to defeat terrorists while the others supported towards the victory of terrorists.

It was the Government and the Armed Forces which fought to defeat terrorists while the UNP, TNA and several foreign countries acted in favour of the LTTE.

Finally the attempts made by the Government and the Armed Forces to defeat terrorists were turned into success while those of the UNP, LTTE and some foreign countries like Norway were defeated.

Those who supported the LTTE and also could not realise their dreams have organised various conspiracies against Sri Lanka throughout the world to cover up their defeat.

They raise various humanitarian issues against the Government and even attempted to bring these issues before the International Court as war crimes. But the President and his Government could successfully face all these challenges.

Now these forces with the support of some foreign countries like Norway and the LTTE friendly Tamil diaspora are attempting to defeat President at the forthcoming Presidential Election. There is a clear international conspiracy behind the present wave of trade union actions and other moves taken against the Government by the Opposition. But the Government has the ability to face any of these challenges.

Q: Is there any genuine cause behind the demand made by some trade unions to give a pay hike to the public servants and the protests made by the undergraduates to sort out their problems? Otherwise, is this a move to de-estabilise the Government?

A: The JVP is fully behind the scene. The JVP is attempting to bring a group of youths to the High Security Zone (HSZ) by force and get them attacked to create a big issue before the elections.

Why should the JVP attempt to enter into the HSZ? If any protester was injured or killed when the attempts are made by the Police to prevent them from entering into HSZ by force,then the JVP would bring that issue before the country to gain political milage.

They would attempt to resort to this kind of tactics in future. But the Government is well aware of these conspiracies. Certain elements attempt to topple the Government through trade union action while some are attempting to topple the Government using money.

In addition, attempts are also made to “buy over” Government MPs. Even when some of the most powerful countries attempted to stet the LTTE, President Mahinda Rajapaksa of this small island, Sri Lanka could successfully win the war against terrorism.

These local and international forces cannot tolerate this at all. Therefore, they make every possible attempt to defeat the President and topple this Government.

Q: Though the Government has finished the war against terrorism, people complain that their cost of living has gone up. How has the Government planned to give relief to the consumers and bring down the cost of living?

A: Some people may think after Prabhakaran was killed the war is over. But KP was arrested after two months of Prabhakaran’s death. A large number of weapons hidden by the LTTE is still being recovered while their intelligence cadres are also being arrested.

These LTTE- friendly elements are still continuing their propaganda campaign worldwide. The Government cannot immediately reduce the war expenditure. During the past few years, the Government has recruited nearly 150,000 youth to the Sri Lanka Army.

Although Prabhakaran is no more, the Government can’t ask these war heroes to retire. The Government has to pay the salaries and provide all other needy facilities to them.

The Government has to pay back the loans obtained to purchase military equipment as well. Amidst these difficult circumstances, the Government has reduced the taxes of essential food commodities and brought down the interest rates of State Banks. The Government has already commenced to give relief to the people. A Government which has put an end to a three-decade old war cannot be expected to grant all reliefs to the people within three months or one year. Whatever powerful country in this world is unable to do that. But the Government has already given a number of relief measures to the people as pledged in “Mahinda Chinthana”.

Q: Do you think the measures taken by the Government to reduce the prices of some essential food items would help bring down the cost of living?

A: Exactly. When the taxes levied on the imported essential food commodities are reduced, it would directly help bring down their prices. At present the Government has removed the taxes imposed on 10 essential food items.

The interest rates of the agricultural loans too have been reduced to 8 percent while the interest rates of housing loans have been brought down to 12 percent. Which country in the world grants agricultural loans at 8 percent? Today anybody can make an investment by obtaining a loan at very concessionary rates. This would lead to a huge development within the country in the near future.

Q: There are allegations that the Government has given into international pressure on various issues to get the IMF loan, GSP + etc. Is there any truth in these allegations?

A: The IMF has already released the second instalment of the loan to Sri Lanka. But the Opposition Leader is not aware of it. The Government has clearly stated that we have not agreed to any condition to obtain this IMF loan.

If the Government has agreed to any conditions, how could the salaries of the public servants be increased? It was the former Ranil Wickremesinghe Government which agreed to various IMF conditions to obtain loans.

The Opposition makes this kind of baseless allegations against the Government to come to power. But the Government categorically denies all these allegations.