{"id":43254,"date":"2015-04-19T22:34:11","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T04:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=43254"},"modified":"2015-04-19T14:38:34","modified_gmt":"2015-04-19T21:38:34","slug":"dilemma-of-slfp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/04\/19\/dilemma-of-slfp\/","title":{"rendered":"Dilemma of SLFP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Janaki Chandraratna\u00a0<\/em>Perth, Western Australia<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>I am at a loss to understand the dilemma of President Sirisena and the SLFP to get their act together to sort out the leadership of the party. It is very logical that the leader of the party should work for the good and success of the party. The former President offered the leadership of the SLFP to Mr. Sirisena to avoid a split in the party, although Mr. Sirisena did not contest the Presidency either from SLFP or UPFA. Mr. Sirisena, however seems to have a conflict of interest in supporting SLFP due to his gratitude to the UNP for its role in the last 6-8 months, in getting him elected as the President. One would reasonably expect Mr. Sirisena to have some gratitude to the SLFP for nurturing him for many decades as a politician as well. However, there appears to be a mismatch in the loyalties of Mr. Sirisena for the two parties concerned.<\/p>\n

In fact President Sirisena has carried out several unconstitutional measures, either at the behest or to please the UNP leader, in the last 100 days of `Yahapalanaya\u2019. Needless to say the silence of the so-called \u2018International Community\u2019, on these measures, indicates perhaps their commitment and support to the current regime change in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

In the final analysis however, Mr. Sirisena needs to make his own mind up regarding his political party allegiance. If his loyalty to the UNP overshadows his obligation to SLFP, he should join the UNP and work for the success of that party.\u00a0 This applies to all SLFP MPs who hang on to ministerial positions in the current parliament and I am confident that they will be eagerly welcomed.<\/p>\n

On the other hand the SLFP has an obligation to present the best case to the electorate so that people have the option of choosing the Govt. on policies presented. There is no doubt the mismatch of policies currently displayed by the two parties had not worked well for the country in the last 100\u00a0days. The continuation of the present uncertainty can only plunge the country into deeper economic recession and political degradation. The senior SLFP members have the obligation and responsibility to select the right leader (for there are many to choose from) to present a case to the electorate.\u00a0 Changing party leaders by the party caucus is a commonplace in any healthy democracy. It is shameless and selfish however, for SLFP MPs to do nothing and hang on to power to the detriment of the future of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Janaki Chandraratna\u00a0Perth, Western Australia \u00a0\u00a0I am at a loss to understand the dilemma of President Sirisena and the SLFP to get their act together to sort out the leadership of the party. It is very logical that the leader of the party should work for the good and success of the party. The former President […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43254","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=43254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}