There can be only one leader in country – President
Posted on June 22nd, 2015
Courtesy The Daily News
President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday said there cannot be two leaders in a country.
A country should be governed by one leader and he should be allowed to run its administration” the President said addressing an SLFP meeting in Nuwara Eliya yesterday.
Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga strove to bring out reforms through peaceful measures. She even became a victim of the violence unleashed by the LTTE. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa defeated the LTTE and introduced reforms to the country. I too was elected by the people of the country to bring about reforms. I should be allowed to do that,” the President told the SLFP activists in the Nuwaraeliya district.
Our party had faced splits in the past. We all know what happened when we had to deal with divisions in the past. The SLFP will not be able to form a government as long as the party is divided,” President Sirisena said.
There are some who talk about breaking away from the SLFP and contesting separately. They are betraying the party and its supporters. I do not want to sideline any person. But, if I am the party leader, others should cooperate with me and support my efforts to restore unity in the party,” he also added.
– See more at: http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=local/there-can-be-only-one-leader-country-president#sthash.vV308Twe.dpuf
June 22nd, 2015 at 5:05 am
There can be only one leader in country – Then who is the leader, Ranil or Sirisena?
Or you are talking from your posterior end.
June 22nd, 2015 at 6:09 am
True. ONLY ONE LEADER for Lanka – but WHO is that Leader ? pray tell us, Mr President !!
Downhill motion from the present govt – lies, lies, and more lies. Shameful and gutless leadership akin to Don Juan Portuguese times or worse as Lanka is supposed to be the Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, Independent and free from Colonists.
June 22nd, 2015 at 11:08 pm
True! there is only one leader and that is unequivocally Mahinda Rajapakse.
Sirisena knows that he is not a leader but a person who became the chairman by fraudulent means.
June 23rd, 2015 at 5:29 am
This man won with the help of UNP, LTTE, Islamic fundamentalist, Up country Indian Tamil, Colombo Indian Tamil(Mano Ganeshan gang), Polonnaruwa and Colombo votes. He ate with Mahinda and betrayed him next morning. Is this the leader Sri Lanka deserve? When I see Sirisena’s face, I cry for my country.
June 23rd, 2015 at 5:40 am
Though I have the greatest distaste for the present GoSL due to bootlicking of outside forces and skullduggery with the
Finances of the Country, telling of blatant Lies, etc., I am of the opinion that ALL leaders of the Country are needed, and needed to act RIGHT, to look after the NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE. Live up to the expectations of the Socialist Republic of Lanka, not act in shameful ways to bring down the image & finances of the country.
June 23rd, 2015 at 11:42 am
If there is only one leader, then Sirisena is admitting that he is NOT the leader of Sri Lanka, as he does not control the cabinet, the Prime Minister does. This will not change with Mahinda – he will be the leader as Prime Minister and Sirisena will be a figurehead just like he is now.
As for ‘splits’ in the SLFP; right now it is a 90/10 split in favor of Mahinda, and this is another reason why Sirisena does not want to go through with the no confidence vote – it exposes his very weak support in the SLFP which would lead any reasonable person to question why he is the leader of the party with only 10 MPs.
I say boot Sirisena out of the SLFP leadership on the grounds that the clause making the president of the country the leader of the SLFP was based on the president retaining the executive function of government; but now that executive function rests with the Prime Minister with the passing of the 19A, so the clause is no longer applicable.
If Sirisena continues as the SLFP leader and refuses to allow Mahinda to contest, there really is no choice but to bag the SLFP, and shift all of the Mahinda MPs (100+) to a new party, and strongly contest the 10 seats that are still loyal to Sirisena. This would put Sirisena in an even weaker position than he already is in, as he will be the leader of a party that has no real support at all. It also allows Mahinda to place some distance between him and the new government’s policies, as it can not longer be said that his new party was part of the unity government.
Regardless of how the SLFP thing turns out, the central task of Mahinda is to retain his 5.8 million voters (security issues, UNHRC war crimes, separatist political solutions, resumption of LTTE, removal of army camps, etc.) and aggressively go after the frustrated Maithripala voters (at least 500,000 voters) who had no intention of making Ranil and the UNP the leaders of Sri Lanka. Focusing on the following issues will allow Mahinda to win these frustrated Maithripala voters: genuine reform on the corruption issue, exposing Ranil and UNP hypocrisy on corruption, stoppage of infrastructure development, politicization of law enforcement, and exposure of cost of living fraud with artificially low oil prices for election purposes (e.g., Ceylon Petroleum selling at below cost). If Mahinda gets a favorable split (51/49) in these frustrated Maithripala voters, he wins the election.
The goal is to keep Ranil’s numbers limited to UNP (20%) + 75% of Minorities (20%), which obviously is not a majority.
June 24th, 2015 at 12:15 am
I should have added above, that no serious leader of any party would even think about dissolving Parliament before its term expires if his party had a majority in Parliament. This decision alone disqualifies Sirisena as the leader of the SLFP.