{"id":45270,"date":"2015-07-05T12:44:02","date_gmt":"2015-07-05T18:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=45270"},"modified":"2015-07-05T05:31:39","modified_gmt":"2015-07-05T12:31:39","slug":"sirisena-must-take-full-responsibility-for-the-potential-demise-of-the-slfp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/07\/05\/sirisena-must-take-full-responsibility-for-the-potential-demise-of-the-slfp\/","title":{"rendered":"Sirisena Must Take Full Responsibility for the Potential Demise of the SLFP"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em> Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The SLFP is on its last legs. Formed in 1951 from the consolidation of various political groups including the Sinhala Maha Sabha (formed in 1936), the SLFP ruled the country for 34 years sharing terms with the UNP (33 years). These were with the UNP until then. It faced two previous near death experiences in 1959 and 1979 with the assassination of its founder SWRD Bandaranaike and the civic disability imposed on his wife. However, the party survived as it quickly realigned with the masses. However, the threat it faces today is much worse as it comes from within.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sirisena is doing the opposite of Bandaranaike. Sirisena is re-merging the SLFP with the UNP after a split of 64 years.<\/strong> That makes him the destroyer of the SLFP; the party that made a poor villager the president after a long political career.<\/p>\n<p>However, masses need the UNP-SLFP split to continue so that they have a choice. This democratic nation cannot end up like Cuba, Soviet Union or North Korea of one party rule. Sadly Sri Lanka has fallen into the abyss of dictatorship since January 2015. Sirisena has let down the masses with his pro-UNP stand while holding the top position of the SLFP. On their part, the UNP in a masterstroke successfully plotted the demise of the SLFP. Ably supported by Chandrika, the end of the SLFP marks an end of an era not just in domestic politics but also in Sri Lanka\u2019s foreign relations. By their westernised thinking, they have distanced the party from the people.<\/p>\n<p>If Sirisena has any leadership skills, he should keep personal disagreements aside and join with Mahinda. To her credit, Chandrika agreed to coexist with Mahinda as the prime minister in 2004. Surely, Sirisena is a better leader than her. Or is he?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dilrook Kannangara The SLFP is on its last legs. Formed in 1951 from the consolidation of various political groups including the Sinhala Maha Sabha (formed in 1936), the SLFP ruled the country for 34 years sharing terms with the UNP (33 years). These were with the UNP until then. It faced two previous near death [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45270","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=45270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}