Translated by : A.A.M.NIZAM – MATARA

Participating in the Hiru TVs Salakuna political programme on Monday 29^th January, the former President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa made a brilliant and composed presentation and explained that the reason for his defeat in 2015 was over trusting the people who were close to him. He said that there was a foreign conspiracy to defear him and those countries involve in the conspiracy acknowledged that the victory should belong to them.  Mr. Rajapaksa said that there was a spate of mis allegations, misinformatons, espousing racism. mud slinging assaults and promises and it made the people to get misled.  Speaking about holding the election early Mr. Rajapaksa said that generally people want to remain in power for periods more than they are entitled to but what he did was to hold election erlier than the due date.

He said that his family was in politics since 1930s and people can remain in politics as long as they have the trust of the people and when this trust is lacking they should leave politics He said that they have been able to remain in politics all these years because that they were with the people and if they had gone against the people the people would discarded them.  On the question whether he remains in politics to promote Namal he said that when he lost the election he decided to retire from politics but the people did not allow him to do so and they forcibly brought him back and even Namal he must win over the people and be with the people and then only people will accept him.

This is an occasion the whole country use their franchise. Since the dissolutions of the local government institutions the whole country, all Municipal Councils, Urban Council, and Pradeshiy Sabhas were ruled by the governemt,  Can they say anything they have done during this period, did they construct a culvert, did they remove garbage. This created huge health problems, increased the spread of mosquitoes, people suffered and died from dengue, Many local government institutions Colombo Municipal Council, Dehiwela Mt. Lavinia Municipal Council, Kandy Municipal Council, Kurunegala Municipal Council do not need government funds they can collect sufficient funds and carry out their activities

On the allegation that he is destroying the SLFP formed by S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike and his farher D.A.Rajapaksa, he said that the Sri Lanka Freedom Party was formed by Mr. S.W.R.D.Bandaranaik, his farher D.A.Rajapaksa,Sri Nissanka, T.B.Ilangatne and many others in 1951 and when  Prime Minister S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike wasassanated Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike came in and strengthened the party and it was weakened by Chandrika reducing the number of SLFP  MPs  and sduring his time he strengthened it once again and had 128 members in parliament got almost all the Provincial Councils and about 90% of Pradeshiya .  It was Sirisena who destroyed the party, removed the two General Secretaries, including the General Secretary of the UPFA, publicly stated denial of Prime Minister post discouraging voters, and he even told him that all these were done to ensure the victory of the UNP

On the SLPP, Mr. Rajapaksa said that the SLPP functions as the main people’s force even for the UNP Ranil is not the President of the party.

The day the SLFP and the SWRD policies were betrayed by Sirisena was the day he went to Sirikotha wearing a green garland of flowers and that ws the second assassination of Mr. S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike and his policies.  He pointed out that Mr. S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike nationalized Trinco harbour and Katunyake airport  Now under the leadership of Sirisena national assets are being sold for instance Trinco Oil Tanks, Mattala Airport, Hambantota Harbour  and many other national assets,  He asked whether these are S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike policies? Having the colour of the SLFP, its building and wearing blue colour does not mean that they are SLFPers. He said that they have all the national forces with them which include the pancha maha baalawegeya and added to that the war heroes and students and the youth.

Speakimg om the allegation of non ayment for ITN advertisements, he said that he was nominated as a candidate for tehe Presidential Election by the SLFP and the General Secretary of the party who nominated him was Sirisena and he handled the operation activities and appointed various committees, publicity committee, transport committee and so on.  The publicity committee has entrusted an advertising agency and it was that advertising agency that has dealt with ITN and there were no connection between him and the ITN.  Similarly the Prime Minister has made a similar allegation tha there were 4,000 billion bond scam from 2008 to 2014 and he has challenged them to file a case.  Mr. Rajapksa said that he has full confidence in officials who represented the government at that time and they maintained the records and they have nothing to hide.  He blamed for appointing a non-Sri Lankan for the post of the governor of the Cwentral Bank when there are so many educated and talented people in th counry who are educated here and they will not betray the country as they would live and they aspire to die here.  Basil Rajapaaksa is being prosecuted for paying Rs. 2,500 for Samurdhi recipients but the payment has not being suspended yet and the case is goin on. Countering the allegations about making the country subjected to a huge debt burden Mr. Rajapaksa said that the loans were taken by his government for carrying out development activities with a proper cash flow management method for ongoing poject expenses and to pay the loan instalments without causing any burden to the country.  He said that this government during the last three years has taken huge loans, got millions from the sale of state assets and has mysteriously exhausted the money taken by them as loans without even building a culvert.  He said that when he took over the country the GDP/debt repayment ratio stood around 100 and it was brought down to 70 at the end of his tenure and now it has increased to 80 odd within the last three years.  Mr. Rajapaksa showed charts relating to debt repayment that were being made by his government and its steep reversal once again during the last three years.  Referring to the Port City Development Project he refuted the allegation that he gave a lrge extent of land to China and said that he feels very hppy on seeing the project being developed once again and explained that all these years what we had seen was sea erosion and losing lands adjoining the coast to the sea.  On the contrary under this project over 500 acres of lands were reclaimed from the sea and the agreement made for this task was for China to reclaim the lands and give them to us and in return get 25 hectares and Sri Lanka did not make any payment for carrying out this work.  He asked what they say about the lands that had been sold to foreigners under the facilitation of previous governments and cited the coastal areas from Negombo to South including Galle Fort.  He said that even in the upcountry and in the East coast lands have been sold in this manner.  In respect of Shangrila Hotel and construction of the Security Headquarters the firmer President said that after completing the war in 2009 they wanted to get down investors to develop the country.  However at that time foreign investors were not willing to come due to the fear of the possibility of reemerging the war situation.  It was at this juncture they were able to get Shangrilla hotel chain which has over 100 hotels all over the word to build a Hotel in Colombo at 6 acres of the Army Headquarters premises and build a new security headquarters in a ifferent ocation.  The money received from Shangrila was deposited in a separate bank account to utilize those funds for the construction of the security services headquarters.  This government took that money to the Treasury and that is why they are now finding difficulties to build the Security headquarters.  He said that with the Shangrila investment confidence got build up and many foreign investors started coming to our country, apartment builders, hotel builders, and so on.  Mr. Rajapaaksa also showed a chart outlining the rise of foreign investments from 2009 and the decline of foreign investments during the last three years.    Speaking about the cost of living Mr. Rajapaksa said that people all over the country are suffering due to steep rise in cost of living and even Tamils in the North are experiencing this feeling.  He said that during his period farmers in the North were given fertilizer subsidy and other agricultural equipment including tactors at concessionary prices as it was given in other areas.  He said that in the East private traders are buying paddy only for Rs. 28 and Rs. 30 although a kilo of rice in the market is over Rs. 100.   Speaking further on this subject Mr. Rajapaksa said that this government immediately after they came to power suspended the fertilizer subsidy and the farmers were unable to get fertilizer even at exhorbitant rates at cultivation times, suspended paddy cultivation in 100,000 acres, in order to insult the previous government Mattala Airport was made a paddy storage and this caused several million losses to the airport.  Mr. Rajapksa said that due to lack of proper policies of the government all minor export crops have also suffered.  They do not get a proper price for rubber, cinnamon, areca nut, pepper etc.  He said that small rice mills are threatened with bankrupt possibility and the rice market is controlled by a family mafia.  Responding to questions about the forthcoming local government elections Mr. Rajapaksa said that as per information being received by them there is a steep surge of voter enthusiasm for SLPP and they would get around 55% of the votes, he said that the postal voting was a good indicator and as per the postal voting majority of the public servants have voted for the SLPP and voting in the Gampaha district has been around 90% for the SLPP.  Responding to a question about the confidence he had about the 2015 election he said that he had a feeling that he would lose and after closing the polling he checked about the polling in Jaffna district and found 89% have voted in tht district and similarly heavy polling had been registered in other districts of the North as well and then he came to the conclusion that he had lost and wanted find out where Sirisena was and found that he was in a coconut estate. Then he exrtended his congratulations and decided to leave.

In a message to the voters, Mr Rajapaksa urged them to make use of this election as a referendum against this government and make the opportunity to express their opposition to the government.  He said that during his period new harbours were built, cities wer developed, Colombo city was made the No.1 beautiful city in Asia, a new airport was built, roads were buit all over the country, Expressways were built, farmers were given all facilities and were encouraged, the country was made self sufficient in rice and maize production, cost of living was kept under control, public  servants were given many concessions and facilities and compared to that the country is in deep reversal during the last three years.  Mr. Rajapaksa asked the people to save this country and make it march forward once again to become a prosperous nation.