Conspiracies galore
Posted on December 22nd, 2015
Island Editorial
December 22, 2015, 7:49 pm
President Maithripala Sirisena, speaking in Jaffna on Sunday, vented his spleen on some unnamed extremists for blocking the path to reconciliation and conspiring to dislodge the government. He vowed to defeat those sinister plans. He seems to be troubled by a sense of being encircled with his erstwhile boss, Mahinda Rajapaksa, indicating his readiness to go on the offensive.
President Sirisena’s consternation is understandable. He finds himself in an unenviable position, struggling as he does to unify the SLFP; he will have to lead the SLFP-led coalition’s local government election campaign in a few months. He will have to ensure the UPFA’s victory if he is to consolidate his power in the SLFP. This is a tall order, especially for a person who has engineered the UPFA’s defeat at previous elections and weakened the SLFP in the process. The President’s task will be to win the LG polls without the backing of Rajapaksa. By leading the UPFA campaign he will place himself on a collision course with the UNP led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
There is no guarantee that the political marriage of convenience between the UNP and the UPFA will last until 2020. Some SLFP heavyweights in the Cabinet are already promising to form an SLFP-led government before long while the government leaders are busy papering over the cracks. Holding a government together with a bunch of highly ambitious, strange bedfellows stepping on one another’s toes and pulling in different directions is no easy task.
There is said to be a presidential system in this country, but, in reality, Parliament is still stronger than the executive president. If the president and the prime minister happen to represent two rival parties and be at logger heads the latter becomes the more powerful to all intents and purposes. What we experienced from 2001 to 2004 with President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe at each other’s jugular may serve as an example.
Now that there is no constitutional provision for the President to sack a government within one year of its formation, there is no way he or she can tame or get rid of a hostile prime minister from a rival party. The 19th Amendment has weakened the President’s position as never before; he will be reduced to a mere figurehead in the event of a power struggle between him and Parliament.
Is President Sirisena seeing crocodiles in a glass of water when he accuses his rivals of hatching a plot? Or, is he trying to gain public sympathy? We believe he has read the political situation accurately. Conspiracies are synonymous with Sri Lankan politics. The President himself was party to a plot, which dislodged the UPFA government last January. He broke bread (or hoppers?) with the then President Rajapaksa on the eve of his defection. His ambitious, revengeful rivals are biding their time. But, it is highly doubtful whether either of the two UPFA factions will be able to form a government though some SLFP ministers are bellowing rhetoric to that effect.
The UPFA is divided and, therefore, cannot hold itself together let alone win over 18 more MPs to gain a working majority in Parliament. The UNP can rest assured that it will have the backing of either the Sirisena faction of the SLFP or the UPFA dissidents. Even if the Sirisena loyalists’ honeymoon with the UNP were to come to an end, the UPFA dissidents are likely to enable the UNP to remain in power so as to undermine the President’s position. The UNP with 106 MPs is short of only seven seats to muster a working majority in Parliament. Enmity between Sirisena and Rajapaksa has stood the UNP in good stead and its political fortunes are not likely to be affected by the conspiracies the President is crying blue murder about.
December 23rd, 2015 at 12:41 am
Mahinda Rajapaksa Consults Astrologer at Abhayarama About Forming his own Govt iAfter 2016 April New Year
22 December 2015, 7:14 pm
By
Upul Joseph Fernando
Recently Mahinda Rajapaksa had called an astrologer to Abhayaramaya Temple and inquired about the horoscope of Maithripala Sirisena. Mahinda is of the view that a bright time would dawn on him by April 2016 to form a government.
He has related his future dream to all his friends and members in the joint Opposition. So, all of them are eagerly waiting till Mahinda forms a government in April. Maithri had got wind of Mahinda’s dream about the future. In response Maithri told in public that Mahinda’s camp was planning to form governments by reading his horoscope to be sure about his death.
The UNP which was defeated in 1994 waited for ten years dreaming of Chandrika Kumaratunga’s death to form a government. Then it waited for another ten years awaiting the death of Mahinda. The UNP which was thrown into the Opposition in 1994 never planned strategies to recapture power. Suffering defeat after defeat at elections, the UNP was hell-bent on perusing the horoscope of Chandrika. ‘Chandrika is going to face bad times but her horoscope does not indicate that period’, were the bogus astrological predictions given by astrologers to the United National Party (UNP).
The UNP continued to place trust on predictions made on Chandrika’s horoscope by astrologers. However, Chandrika ruled for 11 years. Despite Chandrika ending her period of rule, the UNP could not grab power as it placed trust on astrology, ignoring the organizational strategies to rally the people around the party.
A strongman of a Non-Governmental Organization one day told UNP strongman Gamini Athukorale a fine story. He said: “One day I went with Vijaya Kumaratunga to get Chandrika’s horoscope read. We went to see a reputed Buddhist monk. The monk did not know that it was Chandrika’s horoscope. The monk said the woman who owns the horoscope had a character like a bottle of soda, which, when opened rises and evaporates in no time and noted that nothing could be read in the horoscope after that period”.
Chandrika’s horoscope
The NGO strongman had even conveyed this story to many UNP stalwarts. Those stalwarts who were guided by that story kept on placing hopes on Chandrika’s horoscope to get oxygen to achieve a UNP victory. Chandrika escaped death in a bomb explosion in 1999 and her rule ended only after 11 years. It was then the UNP opened its eyes. After Mahinda became President, the UNP ran after Mahinda’s horoscope. “Mahinda has gone to Thirupathi Temple for pooja because he faces a bad period”, UNPers said whenever Mahinda went there.
In 2009 well known astrologer Chandrasiri Bandara was invited for a workshop organized by UNP MPs. Bandara was very popular among UNP Parliamentarians. He told the workshop that Mahinda would face a danger. A Mahinda spy in the UNP conveyed the prediction to Mahinda. On learning about this prediction, Mahinda lost his cool and arrested Chandrasiri Bandara. Bandara made that prediction after Mahinda won the war in 2009. The UNP was at crossroads after Mahinda won the war. They thought for themselves that they would never ever come to power.
Hence, Bandara’s prediction of a danger period to Mahinda came as a solace to the UNPers. However, Bandara fell in deep trouble by making that prediction. It was the first time that an astrologer was arrested in political history based on a prediction unfavourable to the ruler. Earlier, Vijaya was labelled a Naxalite in 1982 and arrested while many others were arrested in the past for conspiring against governments.
The police asked Chandrasiri Bandara as to whether he made such a prediction based on a political conspiracy. Bandara claimed that he made it based on astrology. Mahinda confidant Mervyn Silva took Bandara to Mahinda and got Bandara to make predictions favourable to Mahinda. On that condition, Bandara was released.
However, his prediction turnedout to be false.Mahinda never faced any danger or a tragic incident. If Mahinda did not call an early presidential election, he would have been the President even today. However, Mahinda ruled the country for nearly a decade.
Though the UNP waited for 11 years to see Chandrika evaporating from the political scene, finally it was Chandrika who helped the UNP to form a government in 2015.
Courtesy:Ceylon Today
December 23rd, 2015 at 2:39 am
සිරිසේනගේ හඳහන අනුව 2016 අප්රියෙල් මස 4 වනදා හෙනහුරු මහා දසාව තුල චන්ද්ර උදු දසාව ලබයි. ඔහුගේ හඳහනේ චන්ද්ර 12 වැන්නේ සිටීමෙන් නැතිවීම, විනාශය සහ නොලැබීම පිළිඹිඹු කරයි. 2016 අප්රියෙල් සිට 2017 අප්රියෙල් දක්වා මෙම නරක කාලය පවතී.
අප්රියෙල් මස ශුක්ර ග්රහයා සිරිසේනගේ 6 වන ස්ථානයේ ගමන් කරන බැවින් සතුරු උවදුරු වලට ගොදුරු වේ. ශරීර ආපදා සුලබ වේ. රනිල්ටද මහා නරක කාලයක් මාර්තු සිට ලබයි. මෙම අපල නායකයන් තබා ගැනීමෙන් රටටම හෙනහුරු ලබයි.
සිරිසේන ජනපති වන විට ඔහු හෙනහුරු මහා දසාව ගෙවමින් සිටියේ 2014-2015 තුල හෙනහුරු උච්ච වීමෙන් ලබූ මහා බලයෙනි.
උපුල් ජෝසප් නොකියන්නේ, UNP නායකයන් 2014 සිරිසේන තෝරා ගත්තේ මෙම මහාර්ඝ ග්රහ පිහිටීම නිසා. එය හරිගියා.
දැන් එහි විපාක ගෙවීමට ඇති කාලයයි.