{"id":114891,"date":"2021-06-04T16:25:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T23:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=114891"},"modified":"2021-06-04T16:25:15","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T23:25:15","slug":"ranils-extent-of-greed-for-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/04\/ranils-extent-of-greed-for-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Ranil\u2019s extent of greed for power"},"content":{"rendered":"

S. Akurugoda<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

As per a news item appeared in Divaina dated 1 June 2021 \n(https:\/\/divaina.com\/daily\/index.php\/puwath-2\/59203-2021-05-31-03-16<\/em>), the Working \nCommittee of UNP , May 2021, has unanimously decided  that party leader Ranil Wickramesinghe enter\nParliament through its only National List seat \nand the party leader has reacted positively. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 As per the website of The International\nDemocratic Union (IDU), an alliance of conservative political parties from 64\ncountries (predominantly those from the west),  Ranil Wickramasinghes is still the  Vice Chairman of the Asia pacific region since\nJuly 2005. Thus the western traditions towards which he had\nlong tilted would have required him to quit politics long ago, at least retire after a\nhumiliating loss at the last General Election and failed to secure a single\nseat in Parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranil\nWickremesinghe (who came from a well known elite group with close relationship\nto the party\u2019s hierarchy) became the leader of the same party with least\neffort, probably, due to total elimination of the potential leaders by the\nLTTE. Unlike the record kept by the UNP\u2019s previous leaders, he continued to\nremain in the leadership after the loss of more than 35 elections including\nseveral presidential, parliamentary and provincial council elections under his\nleadership. It was reported that the UNP Constitution was amended by Ranil\nWickremesinghe to include provisions to\nthe effect that the leadership can be changed only if it falls vacant. That\nmeans he must resign or die to change its leadership.<\/strong>  After\ncontesting and losing two presidential elections, one in 1999 and the other in\n2005, the Ranil avoided obvious defeats in 2010, in January 2015 and also in\nNovember 2019 due to his own misdeeds, by supporting so-called common\ncandidates, while he was holding the leadership of the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among many misdeeds, let us rush\nthrough the main ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is well known for\nsigning notorious agreements, detrimental to the country in many ways, with\nforeign powers or with their involvements, without going through the parliament\nor briefing the contents of the agreements to the opposition political parties\nor the general public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Ranil became PM in 2001, he blindly signed a\nmemorandum of understanding (called CFA) with Prabhakaran arranged by the\nNorwegians, demarcated \u2018LTTE controlled areas, removed security checkpoints and\nbarricades, allowed to destroy the Long Ranger\u2019s HQ in Athurugiriya,\u2019 allowed\nNorwegians to provide high-tech communication equipment to the LTTE and\nvirtually provided every facility to please the terrorists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the LTTE continued its bloodshed and killed\nmembers of the government intelligence units, army informants and managed to\ntake the lives of all those who were engaged in the \u2018Deep Penetration Unit\u2019\nwhile building up their war capabilities, by leaps and bounds.                                            <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranil also believed that the government would have to\ngive up the area it seized from the LTTE to facilitate the so-called\nnon-existing peace process. The leadership also required the government of Sri\nLanka to satisfy the requirements of the so-called international community and\nthe Norwegians, who were openly interfering with the internal affairs of a\nsovereign nation (Sri Lanka) with sinister motives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately he was defeated at the next Presidential\nelection in 2005; otherwise a party which produced the \u2018Father of Nation\u2019 would\nhave ended up producing \u2018Father of Two Nations\u2019 16 years ago.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after Ranil became PM again in 2015, he brought in Arjuna Mahendran\nfrom Singapore and made the Governor of the Central Bank and the financial\ndamage done to the   country via notorious\nBond Scam and how Ranil attempted to cover-up the issue is well known. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The so-called \u2018Yahapalana\u2019 government formed under Maithipala – Ranil\nleadershp with the support received from Western and Indian spy agencies was\nresponsible for promoting Islamic Extremism which led to Easter carnage by weakening\nthe country\u2019s intelligence services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The handing over of the strategic port of Hambanthota to China on a 99\nyear lease and attempt to sign another treacherous agreement MCC at the last\nmoment in 2019 are other examples. The list goes on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\ngoing through repercussions of what Ranil has done to the country when handling\nvital issues during his leadership, one cannot stop laughing when reads his advices\nto the government under the news item appeared in The Island dated 1 June 2021\nunder the title Ranil tells govt. how to\ntackle pandemic\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last 7 decades the UNP and the SLFP have been the largest parties\nby far. The UNP managed to produce 7 PMs and 3 Presidents since independence. The\nfate of a leader who holds the leadership for 27 years and managed to become the\ncountry\u2019s PM three times is very pathetic. Now he is about to enter the\nParliament via the only available National List Seat after suffering the\nparty\u2019s worst defeat in its history and  failing\nto secure a seat in the Parliament.  What\nan extent of power greediness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S. Akurugoda<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. Akurugoda As per a news item appeared in Divaina dated 1 June 2021  (https:\/\/divaina.com\/daily\/index.php\/puwath-2\/59203-2021-05-31-03-16), the Working  Committee of UNP , May 2021, has unanimously decided  that party leader Ranil Wickramesinghe enter Parliament through its only National List seat  and the party leader has reacted positively.  As per the website of The International Democratic Union […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s-akurugoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114891","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=114891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}