By Charles.S.Perera

 Perhaps it is to please the wife and children  that some seek  positions of  importance. Maitripala was a disappointed man having been left out from being made the Prime Minister.  It was no fault of the President, but due to D.M.Jayaratna holding onto the post despite his ill health and evident inability to contribute much to the country or to Buddhism which came under his purview. 

 He being the most senior member of the SLFP the President  could not have  removed him, and may have expected him to  resign on his own.  Had the PM  done so Maitripala may have been appointed the Prime Minister and avoided the present  rather annoying situation. 

 The invitation for Maitripala Sirisena  to break away from the SLFP and accept to be the common presidential candidate for the opposition may have come to him long time before.  He mentioned at the media conference at which he presented himself as the Common candidate for the opposition , that he went home and remained sulking in a state of worry and his wife and children told him they understood his situation and asked him to do what ever he thinks is best and that they were even prepared to die for him. In an earlier occasion his son is said to have told a police officer who arrested him for a brawl in which he was involved that he is the son of the future Prime Minister.

 That affirms his disappointment for being overlooked for the office of the Prime Minister even though he had not mentioned it to his friends or to the President for that matter. It is this personal disappointment and the vengeance against those who deprived the fulfilment of his personal ambition  that had inspired Mairipala Sirisena  to join hands even with the devil to reach the heights he has failed to reach.

 Chandrika the  ex President is happy being in the lime light again as the hand that activates the puppet.  Ranil Wickramasinghe is undoubtedly the most elated in that he would get in 100 days after the election, if  Sirisena were to be elected the President, the  political power that had escaped him for miserable twenty nine times.  He will be at last the executive Prime Minister capable of making the  ceremonial President dance to his tune resorting to his duties of declaring open new buildings and roads  if they were to be constructed under the new government of the Prime Ministe, and attending  official functions.

 Maitripala Sirisena still dreams. He says he will protect the  President Mahinda Rajapakse and the Armed Forces and will not allow any one to take them before a Tribunal.

 Maitripala Sirisena  the man  who if elected  would hand over his executive powers to Ranil Wickramasinghe as the Prime Minister does not still seem to understand that in hundred days after his election he will have no power to protect Mahinda Rajapakse or the Armed Force if they were arrested  to be produced before a tribunal as he claims,  as it would depend on the executive Prime Minister.  He does not even know what his fate would be as a President without executive power under a scheming executive  Prime Minister-Ranil Munasinghe.

 This reminds one of the unfortunate King  Yasalalakatissa who wanted to play a prank on his Ministers  put the Crown on his head of the  gatekeeper  and made him sit on his thrown himself standing at the gate playing the role of the gatekeeper. The King gatekeeper” got the  poor King standing at the gate playing his role slain.

 Ranil Wickramasinghe who is to take over the executive powers from Maitripala Sirisen if elected President , has not explained to Sirisena what would become of him after handing over his executive powers to him as the Prime Minister.  Maitripala Sirisena  does not seem to have understood  that under such circumstances he would be  no body, just a ceremonial  President without any political power to decide on any matter. 

 Maitripala Sirisena  interested only in being the President no matter what happens to the executive powers, seems also not  to have asked  what would happen to him after handing over his executive powers in 100 days to Ranil Wickramasinghe as his  Prime Minister.  

 Maitripala Sirisena is being taken for a complete fool by Chandrika, Ranil Wickramasinghe, Madoluwewa Sobita, Athureliye Ratana , Champika Ranawaka, Sampanthan and the rest all enacting a parody making Sirisena believe all what they are doing is real.  Sirisena  will  realise that it had been a nightmare only  if he were to be elected and wakes up after 100 days.

 Sirisena’s call being abolition of executive Presidency has no popular backing as it seems to be  for most of the presumptuous educated, the elitist and the Colombians classes. 

 Corruption is not unknown to the peasants and villagers, as corruption is not confined to the Government. The Mill owners and such other  business class exploit the under privileged by setting up monopolies in their respective enterprises in the provinces affecting the villagers. Hence  for the majority of the voters outside Colombo and in other towns, corruption would not be  a reason to turn away from the President Mahinda Rajapakse and his government.

 UNP capitalises on nepotism against the President but the ordinary mass of people knows that the brothers of the President had been a strength for him to bring peace and economic progress into the country. The voters will not find it a reason to vote for the man Sirisena who cannot depend on brothers like those of the President who are not businessmen but experienced politicians and one a battled hardened Lieutenant Colonel.

 The Opposition political collective  while seeking cooperation with the treacherous TNA accuses the President for protecting KP and accepting Karuna Amman into SLFP.   They little understand the courage of Karuna Amman whose defection from the terrorist LTTE contributed to deception of the terrorists. KP on the other hand helped the government to unfold  secrets that made the terrorists a formidable armed force.  They played a role in the elimination of terrorism and restricting the activities of the Tamil diaspora..

 It is a part of the Buddhist culture to pardon those who have confessed to their faults and accepted the path of righteous. Omalpe Sobita of the JHU  showed this lack of Buddhist concept of pardon, when the five Indian fishermen who were sentenced to death, were sent to India to deal with them, reaffirming to India of Modi the sincerity of Sri Lankan governments  dealing with India of Modi.  India of Modi is definitely different from that of  Soniya Gandhi.

 The persons Sirisena could fall back on are self seeking individuals like Chandrika Kumaratunga, Ranil Wickramasinghe, Madoluwawe Sobita, Atureliye Ratana, TNA’s Sampanthan, but the ordinary mass of people who  have their own opinion will not fall in line  with them.  UNP can depend on its block vote, but the larger Buddhist voters cannot be drawn by Madoluwawe Sobhita, or Athureliya Ratana  through their yellow robes , nor by the white national dressed morality of Champika Ranawaka, or Udaya Gamanpila, who have kicked their principles to sit along side UNP and the TNA against a national leader, a great Buddhist,  and an unrivalled patriot President Mahinda Rajapakse.

 Sirisena seems to  have no great backing from the SLFP as he  expected.  Some ordinary people who had been uncertain to whom they would vote begin to say that they will vote against Sirisena to show their disapproval of the treachery against his party leader Mahinda Rajapakse who never  abused his executive power of his Office either against the people, nor against the members of his party with whom he had shared his jubilation  in victory and deception in loss.

 Sirisena is a victim of a conspiracy hatched by Chandrika Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickramasinghe.  Sirisena did not only fall in to their trap but pinacled it by promising Ranil Wickramasinghe his desired office of the Prime Minister with executive powers, Sirisena himself taking the back seat of being a nominal President with nothing but the prestige of being a ceremonial President of Sri Lanka. 

 That was a display of utter foolishness.  Sirisena could have waited before making that declaration unless it was agreed as a part of the conspiracy, which was evident the way Chandrika was conducting the press conference at which Sirisena declared his treacherous acceptance  to be the common candidate.  She was definitely the leader trying to make Sirisena the pawn she was placing on the  chequer board  of politics to check mate the President Mahinda Rajapakse..

 Athureliye Ratana, Champika and Gamanpila  were also a part of that treacherous conspiracy prepared before hand  by presenting to the President Mahinda Rajapakse an impossible Amendment 19 to the constitution  with the demand that it be implemented immediately or accept their defection.     

 Democracy is a debilitating farce that has been imposed on developing nations by the most undemocratic west. The periodical changes of governments had not helped the West and  it will not help the developing nations. 

 The moment a sincere political leader who is bent on developing the country providing its  people with peace and security  is recognised, the people should be allowed to keep his political leadership sufficiently long enough to really develop the country and bring home prosperity  Alternating governments  changing from one to another periodically will hamper development and keep the developing countries always undeveloped and poor depending on the rich West for small hand outs to exist.

 Hence the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution is a great innovation. The SPCs recommended in it assures the independence of administration foreseen in  the  former 17 Amendment.  But the opposition political parties which accuse the government  as non democratic  and dominated  by an executive President are to be blamed for the  inactivation of the SPCs due to their refusal to nominate members.  It is the opposition parties which are non democratic  and not loyal to the  democratic Parliamentary System of governance.

 As things are the change of a President at the forth coming Presidential election will hamper the forward march of Sri Lanka.  The Common Candidate put forward by  a conglomeration of different political parties with different self serving political interests will not be a match to the President Mahinda Rajapakse who has a definite  step by step programme to develop the country to bring it to vie with the developed countries of the West.

 In order make a success of the program  which is being carried out by the President Mahinda Rajapakse,  the Tamil Community has to give up its separatist communal demands and  join hands with the government for  the realisation of a  communal unity instead of depending on a Common President without execute power to lead the country nowhere allowing it into stagnation instead of progress and prosperity.

 It is therefore the duty of every patriot Sri Lankan who wishes  Sri Lanka peace and prosperity to band together to vote  for the President Mahinda Rajapakse for a third term to complete the planned development process he began in  2005 with the presentation of the Mahinda Chintnaya.