{"id":110159,"date":"2020-12-28T16:39:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T23:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=110159"},"modified":"2020-12-28T16:39:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T23:39:20","slug":"why-provincial-councils-elections-should-not-be-held-at-this-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/12\/28\/why-provincial-councils-elections-should-not-be-held-at-this-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Provincial Councils Elections should not be held at this moment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Sudath Gunasekara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

An Address to His Excellency the President and Hon Prime Minister,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Sudath Gunasekara : Ex Secretary to\nPrime Minister Sirimavo Bandarnayaka and President Mahanuwara Sinhala Bauddha\nJesTha puravesiyange sanvidhanaya. 27.12 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am making this all-important and serious request to you on behalf of the whole nation as it was reported this morning over the Pattare vistare that the Cabinet has decided to get the views of the Party leaders on this matter before it is resubmitted to the Cabinet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides the Party Leaders, even if the\nwhole world requests you to hold Provincial Council Elections, I appeal to you\nnot to go for it at this critical hour of the nation for the following reasons.\nFurthermore never think of giving the PCC a new lease of life without first\nmaking a comprehensive in-depth evaluation of a cost-benefit analysis of this\nmess from its inception in 1987 to date. Such an investigation is a must to\nfind out the benefits the Provincial Councils have accrued to the country and\nthe people, if there is any, and the colossal damages it had already done to\nthe country  as its relevance to this\nIsland nation had been a highly debatable and a controversial subject.in view\nof its place of origin and the proposers hidden objectives in re- shaping the\nlong term political, economic, geopolitical, geo-strategic, administrative and\nsocio-cultural landscape of this country including its possible disastrous  implications in future on this country and\nthe Sinhala nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason 1 why you should not go for\nelections for these utterly useless white elephants and death traps even if the\nParty leaders support it as they will be the first party to ask for it as leaders\nof political parties that oppose the Government to create more problems for the\ngovernment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly to put the Government in to more\ntrouble and create confusion in the country to enable them to come to power as\nsoon as possible and <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Secondly to appease and bait their\npolitical bandwagon at the Provincial level who are craving and dreaming for\npositions in the new Provincial Councils claiming that it was they who wanted\nthe government to have this election when it was hesitant<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirdly, and more importantly, this is like\ngiving a pot of curd to cats\u201d, or putting a tortoise to water\u201d, as the\nwonderful Sinhala sayings Dii kirata balallut saakki\u201d and Ibba diyata demmaa\nwage\u201d as they waiting to find out some loophole to mobilize their supporters to\ncapture power at Provincial levels<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can assure you that none of these Party\nleaders have any concern for the people or the country as they are only\nconcerned with coming back to power by hook or crook and to enjoy the luxuries\nthey have lost temporally. We need not speak about their patriotism, for, as\nperhaps you know it better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a feeling that all of them will\nsupport having elections for the simple reason that elections are the bread and\nbutter for desperate politicians when they are not in power to wash all their\ndirty linen against the Government in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand by any chance if they say\nno  and if you listened to them and stop\nelections to PCC then they will claim credit for their rather bold and Patriotic\nstand\u201d  to safeguard the interests of the\nmasses. A message they will carry forward for the next election <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In\nthis backdrop I request you not to go by their verdict, whatever they say as I\nam confident that you have the power and the brain too to take the correct\ndecision. The correct decision the 7 million voters who voted you  in to power twice within 9 months wanted you\nto take is to scrap the PCC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Obviously with Presidential Executive powers\nrestored under the 20th A and the 70% public endorsement given to you with 2\/3\nin the Parliament I am of the view that you have the full authority to make the\nbold and historic decision not to have PC Elections at this juncture, as you\ndid in 2009 against the LTTE in spite of serious objections made by the Western\npowers. This is a golden opportunity to prove your metal once again as\nundisputed national leaders of the nation without allowing others to get the\ncredit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason 2 \nProtest by Mahaa Sangha and 7 million who voted this government in to\npower<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More importantly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the 70 lakhs Sinhala voters who voted\nyou both at the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections (2019 and 2020) lead\nby the Mahasangha, (except a very few, of course negligible by way of numbers\nat elections but who want it, for their own benefits as Governors, Ministers,\nPC MPP to be and in many other places within \nthe PCC system to enjoy the luxuries that go to fall on their heads from\nheaven for doing nothing in return) are strongly against the Provincial\nCouncils. They all vehemently oppose it and want the PCC to be scrapped and\nthey have already threatened to get on to the streets as  you yourself did in 1987 where three\npatriotic people had to sacrifice their lives \non behalf of you and the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason 3   \nExtremely prohibitive cost, problem of procurement of funds and\nrepayment<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, the extremely prohibitive cost of\nsuch an Election at a time like this when the country needs billions and\nbillions for the current Covid 19 expenses with a pending third wave on the way\nwhere the financial commitments are unpredictable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the time to go for another\nuseless Election after two National Elections just concluded at exorbitant cost\nwith a staggering figure around Rs 30 billion <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A PC election at this moment will cost more\nand it will be at least double the amount needed for one election, or at least\nRS 25 billion the minimum in view of the prevailing Covid 19 disaster. With the\nthreat of a third wave on the way it could be even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From where are you going to get this money?\nBorrow from whom?  And how are you going\nto repay it when we are already struggling on the rim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason 4 PCC for whose benefit and what\ngain to the country?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the benefit the PCC have brought in\nfor the country or the general public for the past 33 years other than the\nwastage of billions of public funds and disrupting and confusing the District\nAdministration affecting the governance in the whole country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason 5 Putting the people from the\nfrying pan to the hearth\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As PCC have completely disrupted and killed\nthe once efficient district Administration under GAA and made delivery of\nservices confusing and inefficient due to overlapping, confusion and conflict\nbetween the District administration and Provincial Administration <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason 6 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paving the way for complete disintegration\nof the eksesath Sinhala Buddhist State that had been protected and defended by\nour ancestors for the past 2600 years and destroying the Sinhala Buddhist State\nby dividing the country in to 9 independent Governing units with some of them\nmono Tamil and some mono Muslim,  finally\nheading to mark the end of Sinhala Buddhist civilization in this country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reason 7 Finally<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Sudath Gunasekara An Address to His Excellency the President and Hon Prime Minister, Dr Sudath Gunasekara : Ex Secretary to Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandarnayaka and President Mahanuwara Sinhala Bauddha JesTha puravesiyange sanvidhanaya. 27.12 2020 I am making this all-important and serious request to you on behalf of the whole nation as it was reported […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sudath-gunasekara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}