{"id":45763,"date":"2015-07-16T22:21:24","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T04:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=45763"},"modified":"2015-07-16T12:46:58","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T19:46:58","slug":"an-open-letter-to-his-excellency-mr-mahinda-rajapakasa-ex-president-of-sri-lanka-and-honorable-members-of-upfa-central-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/07\/16\/an-open-letter-to-his-excellency-mr-mahinda-rajapakasa-ex-president-of-sri-lanka-and-honorable-members-of-upfa-central-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to His Excellency, Mr. Mahinda Rajapakasa (Ex-President of Sri Lanka); and Honorable Members of UPFA Central Committee."},"content":{"rendered":"

JANAKI CHANDRARATNA\u00a0PERTH, AUSTRALIA<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Dear Sirs<\/p>\n

It is with great admiration that I commend His Excellency Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa for standing for the parliamentary elections 2015 to save our country from the impending \u2018Arab Soring\u2019, planned by the current govt. I am also equally in awe of the relentless efforts of the UPFA Core Committee (Messrs.\u2019 Wimal Weerawansa; Susil Premajayantha; Priyadharshana Yapa; GL. Peiris; Nimal Siripala de Silva; Dinesh Gunwardana; Vasudeva Nanayakkara; and others) for going through the arduous journey to obtain UPFA nominations to Mr. Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n

Despite Mr. Sirisena\u2019s imprudent speech and the return of CBK to support the UNP, I am convinced that the UPFA has a chance for an unprecedented win at the August election. The electorate appears eager to reset 8 January outcome after experiencing the 150-day disaster of \u2018Good Governance\u2019 of the current govt. The road to victory, which has just begun, however, is still arduous and needs to be managed with great astuteness. In addition to Mr. Sirisena\u2019s negative predictions, the media appears to be biased against the UPFA, to keep up with PM\u2019s directive of \u2018Controlled Censorship\u2019, to safeguard their licenses. To counter a prejudiced media is a serious challenge to the mistreated party in an election. Also the ground reality has changed remarkably from that of 2010, perhaps due to the defeat of terrorism. The age-old UPFA policy of \u2018Ahimsa\u2019, and non-refutation of allegations according to Buddhist principles do not work in the modern day electorate. Silence is often misconstrued as guilt and a cover up. These days, people are more informed of their rights and privileges, and likely to be influenced by media misinformation as at 8 January election. \u00a0Mere motherhood statements and rhetoric on winning the terrorist war alone will not be sufficient to cross the line.\u2028 In order to overcome the above difficulties, I believe, UPFA needs to have a catching, slogan, firm policies and a strong manifesto.<\/p>\n

Policies<\/u><\/em>\u00a0 – It is to be expected that the opposition will continue with the un-substantiated allegations (mud slinging campaign) although people are tired of unproven claims. Yet mud generally can stick if unchecked as it did on 8 January. In order to overcome this strategy in its tracks, UPFA needs to inform the electorate at the outset that spurious character assassinations and unsupported allegations will be severely dealt with through the legal system. UPFA MPS too need to comply with this policy. Also, avenues available to mitigate this risk of character assassination through the Commissioner of Elections need to be explored.<\/p>\n

Manifesto<\/u><\/em> \u2013 UPFA needs to make use of the Manifesto to overcome the fears currently peddled by the opposition. These fears include the rejection of the recent salary\/pension increases; dishonoring price reductions; and the withdrawal of fraud and corruption investigations; in the event of a UPFA win. It needs to be made clear to the electorate that the salary\/pension increases and price reductions given by the current regime (however burdensome to the economy they can be) will be retained and alleged fraud investigations will be continued through the legal system. The politburo FCID will be dismantled and the full force of law would be brought against the perpetrators of unsubstantiated allegations. The Central Bank fraud will be handed over to a legally appropriate investigation.<\/p>\n

Specific statements should be made on Governance and rule of law. In this regard the Manifesto needs to include \u2028timelines for appointments to the Commissions in the 19th Amendment. Further suggested inclusions are a code of ethics for Ministers and MPS; electoral reforms; measures for honesty and integrity of the public administrative system; open govt., with regular press conferences on govt. policies\/progress\/Issues etc.<\/p>\n

Other items that are of benefit to be included are the proposed development targets and an assurance on the preservation of public enterprises. The non-aligned foreign policy and the position on 13th Amendment \u2013 (Police and Land Powers) need to be included with a pledge to retain the sovereignty and security of the country. Attention should be drawn to the fact that reconciliation with minority parties will be within the constraints of a unified country. In terms of the external UNHRC Investigation, it needs to be added that an internal investigation will be undertaken with UN \u2018experts\u2019 as observers provided information on allegations, which are now protected for 20 years are released to the Sri Lankan Government.<\/p>\n

I believe that a Manifesto distributed to the electorate in print form has the potential to negate the lack of a broad media support and the cheap faceless Facebook tweets against the UPFA.<\/p>\n

It should be mentioned that Mr. Sirisena\u2019s January 8 Manifesto was comprehensive and clear as to what the electorate can expect from a Regime Change. This manifesto did contribute in no small measure for Mr. Sirisena\u2019s victory on 8 January.<\/p>\n

I would appreciate if you would take the above suggestions on board to give UPFA the best chance of victory at the August election.<\/p>\n

Thank you<\/p>\n

JANAKI CHANDRARATNA<\/p>\n

PERTH, AUSTRALIA<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JANAKI CHANDRARATNA\u00a0PERTH, AUSTRALIA Dear Sirs It is with great admiration that I commend His Excellency Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa for standing for the parliamentary elections 2015 to save our country from the impending \u2018Arab Soring\u2019, planned by the current govt. I am also equally in awe of the relentless efforts of the UPFA Core Committee (Messrs.\u2019 […]<\/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-45763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45763","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=45763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}