{"id":47685,"date":"2015-09-08T20:06:05","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T02:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=47685"},"modified":"2015-09-08T13:03:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T20:03:42","slug":"a-tale-of-deception-to-upend-democracy-in-sri-lanka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/09\/08\/a-tale-of-deception-to-upend-democracy-in-sri-lanka\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Deception to upend Democracy in Sri Lanka"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka Patriot<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

There are many people who are now second guessing President Mahinda Rajapakse and saying he should have removed the 13A, he should not have had elections when he did, he should have turned to the West instead of China etc. His hands were tied in many ways. India would have not allowed him to remove the 13A easily. China helped Sri Lanka a great deal both monetarily and also by supporting Sri Lanka in the UN and also by supplying us with necessary arms during the war on LTTE terrorists. See\u00a0http:\/\/www.adaderana.lk\/news\/32247\/couldnt-win-the-war-without-chinas-help-sf<\/a><\/p>\n

It is very easy to say President Mahinda Rajapakse should not have had elections. People have such short memories. There was a lot of foreign money flooding into Sri Lanka. There was a lot of pressure on him from the West on War crimes through UNHRC. Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaiyake had 10 accounts which she was rotating with $ coming in to the accounts which she would transfer to another bank account \u00a0on the day the those particular accounts would be scrutinized by the Central Bank. Finally she got caught and MR sent the papers about her misdeeds to the Parliament. After due process Parliament decided to impeach her and brought a motion to remove her from office. See\u00a0http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/ews\/items\/2015\/03\/03\/removal-of-a-chief-justice-from-office\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then there was the case of Maithripala’s son who was questioned by the police for having bundles of foreign currencies at his girl friend’s house. See\u00a0http:\/\/www.island.lk\/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=116619<\/a>\u00a0 and also\u00a0http:\/\/www.dailynews.lk\/?q=police-legal\/daham-sirisenas-girl-friend-mother-allegedly-remove-currency-note-bundles<\/a><\/p>\n

The Commonwealth Conference in Sri Lanka last year opened the eyes of all since UK PM David Cameron broke all protocol and went to the North to meet with the Tamil leaders on his own. He met with Vigneswaran and also Sampanthan. Similarly, the US Embassy people were regularly going to the North. Therefore all the indications were there that the West, meaning UK, USA and India seemed all too interested in the North, and paid no heed to GoSL.\u00a0 MR realized that he was up against huge forces who wished to take over Sri Lanka. Under the circumstances he did the best thing he could which was to have elections to either strengthen his hand or retire to Medamulana.<\/p>\n

The elections were cheated in January 2015, as has been pointed out by Dilrook Kanangara and Ajit Randeniya. See\u00a0https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/02\/01\/astronomical-increase-in-number-of-voters-2010-vs-2015-in-tamil-areas-how-is-it-possible\/<\/a>\u00a0 and also \u00a0https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/07\/01\/2014-electoral-roll-was-rigged\/<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition so many untruths were said against MR and his family and government in all the media, and on the platforms, which MR and others did not even bother to repudiate. It was as if he had given up and wanted to retire.<\/p>\n

After a cheated election where MY3 ‘won’, President Mahinda Rajapakse did nothing on these reports and retired to Medamulana. Obviously he did not want to meet the same fate suffered by all those leaders toppled by the West.<\/p>\n

However then something very unexpected which has not happened anywhere in the world happened. Hordes of people began coming to MR’s house and crying and begging him to come back to politics.<\/strong> When the famous Nugegoda meeting took off then the UPFA group who led the “bring back Mahinda” movement were energized and it really appeared that there was a good chance for MR to win. He would have won too had not MY3 stabbed MR in the back for the second time by announcing that he will not appoint MR to Prime Minister post two days before the election. He further cut the ground under the UPFA by preventing meetings of the party by a court injunction and also by sacking the General Secretaries of UPFA & SLFP, and 13 others on the eve of the election. All this was done because according to his own admittance he had got intelligence reports that UPFA will win 113 seats. <\/strong>When the leader of the party acts against his own party what chances does Democracy have in any country ? All his actions were against Election laws and also the party Constitutions and Sri Lanka Govt. Constitution I believe. In spite of his actions against UPFA they got 95 seats which is very creditable. See\u00a0https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/08\/25\/i-wrote-that-letters-sacked-secretaries-because-i-received-intelligence-reports-that-upfa-is-on-the-verge-of-winning-president-%E0%B6%BD%E0%B7%92%E0%B6%BA%E0%B7%94%E0%B6%B8%E0%B7%8A-%E0%B6%BD\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Similar cheating of elections has taken place in the so called ‘Democratic West’. The people have to be always vigilant and be on guard against dictatorships and erosion of freedoms. Freedom is not Free and constant vigilance is the price to be paid for it.<\/p>\n

MY3 is one of the worst politicians I have seen in my life. He back stabbed MR twice, then went against his own party, created a National Govt with UNP by forcing the SLFP to sign the MOU by appointing his own henchmen as General Secretaries after sacking the people who had been Gazetted by the Election Commissioner. He has broken the law in many many ways both morally and legally.<\/strong> In addition during an interview with the Election Commissioner it has been proven that the UNP could not have got so many votes in a normal way. See\u00a0https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/08\/30\/%E0%B6%B8%E0%B6%B1%E0%B7%9C-%E0%B6%B8%E0%B7%90%E0%B6%AD%E0%B7%92%E0%B7%80%E0%B6%BB%E0%B6%AB-%E0%B6%9A%E0%B7%9C%E0%B6%B8%E0%B7%83%E0%B7%8F%E0%B6%BB%E0%B7%92%E0%B7%83%E0%B7%8A%E0%B6%AD%E0%B7%94%E0%B6%B8\/<\/a><\/p>\n

After the very close election he brought in people who had been rejected by the people into the National List making a mockery of Democracy. He completely ignored the National List which had been Gazetted by the Election Commissioner. See\u00a0http:\/\/www.slguardian.org\/national-list-appointments-outside-the-gazetted-list-is-a-deceitful-act\/<\/a>. He has become quite a dictator in the 6 months he has been in power. May be shaking the Queen’s ungloved hand has gone to his head. What will 5 years do to him? He seems to have gone bonkers.<\/p>\n

In my personal opinion if MY3 has an iota of decency left he should remove himself as leader of UPFA and let the party appoint its own officers and leader and allow it to function as the opposition. The SLFP can become a separate party under his leadership. Those want to remain with him can remain and the others can leave and join UPFA. I must emphasize that I am not sure if that is what UPFA wants. I am just voicing my own sense of frustration at his actions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

He has done the same thing that JR did in 1987 when he asked for the letters resignation from all the MP’s to pass the 13A through the Parliament. I hope MY3 is not planning to give a Federal State in the same manner to the Tamils using JR’s strong arm tactics. We must not forget that nearly 50,000 JVP Sinhala youth died in the resulting uprising against 13A. If that happens the Tamil leaders will get what they have always wanted from 1940’s. Heaven help Sri Lanka if that happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sri Lanka Patriot There are many people who are now second guessing President Mahinda Rajapakse and saying he should have removed the 13A, he should not have had elections when he did, he should have turned to the West instead of China etc. His hands were tied in many ways. India would have not allowed […]<\/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-47685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47685","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=47685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}