{"id":127177,"date":"2022-07-21T16:25:14","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T23:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=127177"},"modified":"2022-07-21T16:25:14","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T23:25:14","slug":"i-am-not-a-friend-of-the-rajapaksas-i-have-been-against-them-ever-since-i-knew-them-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/07\/21\/i-am-not-a-friend-of-the-rajapaksas-i-have-been-against-them-ever-since-i-knew-them-president\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I am not a friend of the Rajapaksas &#8211; I have been against them ever since I knew them&#8221; &#8211; President"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Hiru News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Yesterday evening, President elect Ranil Wickramasinghe visited Hunupitiya Gangarama Temple in Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although this was planned as a private visit, many politicians of the ruling party and journalists from home and abroad who came to know about it also attended the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A British sky news journalist asked the President that since the people of this country are expecting a change and how will you, an old Rajapaksa supporter, make that change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rest of the conversation is given below;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How can I be a friend of the Rajapaksas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am person who has been against them ever since I knew him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You have come from abroad today and asking me if I am a Rajapaksa supporter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ask anyone here, they are Rajapaksa&#8217;s friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How do you make the change that Sri Lanka is looking for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am ready to make the change that the people of Sri Lanka expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would like to tell you one thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a journalist you should do some deep investigations before you ask questions and don&#8217;t ask questions like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aren&#8217;t you a friend of the Rajapaksas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am not a friend of the Rajapaksas, I am a friend of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let me tell you something else, I have worked with President Chandrika Kumaratunga before&#8230; but I have never voted for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She belongs to one party and I belong to a different opposing party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saying that I work together with the Rajapaksas does not mean that I am his friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am only looking into it to see the opportunities available to me and the opportunities to strengthen my party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Hiru News Yesterday evening, President elect Ranil Wickramasinghe visited Hunupitiya Gangarama Temple in Colombo. Although this was planned as a private visit, many politicians of the ruling party and journalists from home and abroad who came to know about it also attended the event. A British sky news journalist asked the President that since [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-ranil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127177","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=127177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}