‘Will people enthrone an unknown person’:

Unfolding events show extraneous elements at work

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

Mass Media and Information Minister Keheliya Rambukwella said with events unfolding one after the other and former SLFP General Secretary Maithripala Sirisena emerging as the Common Opposition candidate, there is reasonable doubt that some extraneous elements are at work.

During his first five-year tenure President Mahinda Rajapaksa eradicated terrorism. Many people both here and abroad held that this was an impossible task as the LTTE was the most ruthless and wealthiest terrorist organisation in the world.

When President Rajapaksa defeated the LTTE, it didn’t appease those interested parties here and abroad.

Certain super-powers called President Rajapaksa a “stubborn person”. That was the tag line, the Minister told the Sunday Observer yesterday. He said, “There is reasonable ground for one to suspect that the Common Opposition candidate and those who support him dance according to the whims and fancies of these extraneous forces.”

The Minister said there is a stable Government which ensured political and financial stability in the country. Are people going to sacrifice all that they had achieved with hard work, blood and sweat during the 30-year bloody war against terrorism to enthrone such an unknown person in the political arena?

The President’s first term focused on winning the war against terrorism which he successfully accomplished; his second term was on accelerated development. Perhaps his third term will be for Constitutional reforms if he so desires. But there is no reason, whatsoever, as to why President Rajapaksa should quit politics at this juncture.

The abolition of the Executive Presidency is not a task entrusted to the President himself. It is Parliament which has to move it and the President has to give his approval. When it came to the 13th Amendment and various other Constitutional changes, the President appointed a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) headed by Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva. The President wanted everybody to present their recommendations before the PSC. The Opposition parties have however, failed to do so, he said.