{"id":119126,"date":"2021-10-12T16:40:53","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T23:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=119126"},"modified":"2021-10-12T16:40:53","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T23:40:53","slug":"those-assurances-of-the-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/10\/12\/those-assurances-of-the-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Those assurances of the President"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Sangadasa Akurugoda<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p><strong>According to media reports, while addressing <\/strong>a ceremony at the Sri Lanka Army\u2019s 72<sup>nd <\/sup>Anniversary\nevent at the Gajaba Regiment Headquarters in Anuradhapura President Gotabaya\nRajapaksa <strong>assured that action would be taken to amend the Constitution\nand introduce a new Electoral System to the people as promised and urged the all\nSri Lankans to extend their support to take the country forward under the \u2018One\nCountry, One Law\u2019 slogan without fraud and corruption. <\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Further, it is noted that in the said media\nreports, the President has accepted the fact that people elected him as the\ncountry\u2019s President with high hopes. From the day he was elected, in the last\ntwo years he had to face a situation never seen before in the world\u2019s recent\nhistory and he had been fighting for the last two years to control the Covid-19\nepidemic. Although he couldn\u2019t fulfill all the expectations, he and his\ngovernment have done lot of work for the people in this situation.&nbsp; He also added that his government will not\noffer any excuses but will forge ahead with its development and welfare drive,\nhe added.<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The above statement of the President is very timely, at this stage, since\ncriticisms against some of the measures taken by the government, whether right\nor wrong, are mounting high in media, especially in the social media, exposing\nthe mistrust and frustrating that arises in the people. <\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The comments made by a minister\nof his own government regarding the President and the government and reported\nin his official Facebook is a clear reflection of the views of those who\nelected the current President and his government. Minister Wimal Weerawansa\nstated in his Facebook that people\u2019s confidence in the current regime has been\neroded not only by <strong>not doing what they\nhoped for, but doing what they did not expect\u201d<\/strong>. As the minister pointed out,\nwhen the same thing continues to happen, trust needs to be established quickly\nto overcome the mistrust and frustration among the people.\nMinister Weerawansa also sighted the importance of the President\u2019s involvement\nin active politics and to attend party leadership meetings for collective\ndecision making to avoid problematic issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When<\/strong> we consider how our politicians\nin the opposition are behaving since independence and even today (under a\npandemic situation) to achieve their own personal aspirations, disregarding\nwhat the country needs, achieving the support of \u2018all Sri Lankans\u2019 to take the\ncountry forward may not be a reality. Our opposition politicians and their\nfollowers today see only the negatives of whatever the government does and they\ndo criticisms which are not constructive but destructive. &nbsp;This does not mean that the right leadership\ncannot take the country forward, if he or she really wants to do so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ruling SLPP government consists of politicians\nwith different interests similar to what we had before under President Mahinda\nRajapaksa. Although President Mahinda Rajapaksa has\ndone a wonderful thing by keeping all these elements together, probably with\nthe intention of achieving political stability as a short term measure, he had\nto face the consequences later at the end of his term! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus it is time for the President to identify\nthe reasons which led to the erosion of the confidence of the people as\noutlined by the Minister Weerawansa and to take necessary steps, sooner rather\nthan later, to isolate those who are responsible for \u2018<strong>doing what the people didn\u2019t expect\u2019.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We were under foreign powers for centuries due to\nthe acts of saboteurs and traitors. We have witnessed, during our life time,\nhow powerful are enemies within, when destabilizing regimes. The public must be\naware of these enemies, as a priority, and should rally against such elements\nin order to protect our nation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sangadasa Akurugoda<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sangadasa Akurugoda According to media reports, while addressing a ceremony at the Sri Lanka Army\u2019s 72nd Anniversary event at the Gajaba Regiment Headquarters in Anuradhapura President Gotabaya Rajapaksa assured that action would be taken to amend the Constitution and introduce a new Electoral System to the people as promised and urged the all Sri Lankans [&hellip;]<\/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-119126","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\/119126","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=119126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}