{"id":54563,"date":"2016-05-11T02:11:27","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T09:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=54563"},"modified":"2016-05-11T02:11:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T09:11:27","slug":"jos-rally-the-biggest-unp-next-slfp-was-nowhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/05\/11\/jos-rally-the-biggest-unp-next-slfp-was-nowhere\/","title":{"rendered":"JO\u2019s rally the biggest, UNP next, SLFP was nowhere"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lankesh Gooneratne\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The Joint Opposition (JO) is a Sri Lankan organization led by Sri Lankans, financed by Sri Lankans and looks after the interest of Sri Lankans, Udaya Gammanpila of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) told Ceylon Today in an interview.
\nExcerpts:<\/p>\n

?How was the response of the people at Kirulapone during the Joint Opposition May Day rally?
\nA: Our crowd at the meeting was unprecedented. In spite of the government trying their best to sabotage our meeting as they knew in advance that our meeting will be a great success. As you know they banned the use of the term Joint Opposition in the media and a letter was sent by the Media Ministry Secretary Nimal Bopage. Then President Maithripala Sirisena threatened former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s security will be reduced to 30 persons as recommended by the Supreme Court.
\nThe government also banned the use of the Shalika Ground before the May Day rally which was reserved after making the due payment.
\nDespite all the obstacles thrown against the JO we had an unprecedented crowd at Kirulapone and it was a remarkable success.
\nUnfortunately, President Sirisena claimed in Galle, where the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) May Day rally was organized that their meeting had the biggest crowd.
\nBut the United National Party (UNP) had the second biggest crowd and the crowd in Galle cannot be compared with the crowd at Campbell Park and it is not even close to the crowd that attended Kirulapone.
\nThis is not my claim it is the reality.<\/p>\n

?What is your point of view on banning the use of the name Joint Opposition?
\nA: Media Ministry Secretary Nimal Bopage showed his lack of understanding. When a question is raised whether the Joint Opposition is not accepted by the people, it’s a lie, they not only recognize us, our leader Dinesh Gunawardena enjoys all the privileges accepted by a party leader in Parliament.
\nMoreover, not only our Parliament, the International Parliamentary Union has recognized the Joint Opposition because we had a meeting with them and they constantly communicate with us.
\nSecondly even if it is not recognized it is not illegal, if you can remember there were different groups in Parliament which were not recognized by the Speaker.
\nFrom 1989 to 1994 there was a Parliamentary group called the Hela Urumaya then there was another unrecognized group in Parliament from 1994 to 2000.
\nSuch groups can be in Parliament. It is not illegal and by telling the media not to publish the name Joint Opposition it shows a lack of understanding of the Law by the current government.<\/p>\n

?The current government will be in power for five consecutive years. Knowing that what are the intentions of the Joint Opposition by speaking against the government?
\nA: Frankly we do not think that the current government will last long although they are going to be in power for five years it won’t last long.
\nThere will be internal power struggles to topple this government because they have failed to live up to the expectations of their own orders. The present government is dealing with an international financial crisis because there will be a gap of four billion dollars in the balance of payment in 2016.
\nThere are only two nations in the world who can give loans of that magnitude to solve all these issues.
\nFirstly, it is Germany, although President Sirisena visited Germany last year and they claimed to divide the Sri Lankan economy for a limited grant of 80 million euros which is equivalent to 20 million US dollars.
\nTo be honest, Germany is not in a position to help a remote island like Sri Lanka because they have a direct impact from other countries which are neighbours of Germany.
\nTherefore, Germany open minded said it would not help Sri Lanka to solve the financial crisis.
\nThen Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visited China as China was the last hope of the government.
\nAs you know when Prime Minister Wickremesinghe was in the Opposition he insulted China in his political campaigns but after coming to power Wickremesinghe stopped the Port City Project but he should know the foundation stone for the Port City was kept by President of China.
\nThe current government made a huge blunder in halting the Port City Project and was an insult to the President of China. But the Chinese Government gave a grant of 80 million dollars.
\nIf Sri Lanka does not get the support from China or Germany, there is no way Sri Lanka could come out of the financial crisis.
\nTherefore, this government will have no choice but to go home as they fail to provide essentials to the people.<\/p>\n

? Is there an international force funding the Joint Opposition to topple the current government?<\/p>\n

A: Well, what is this force? Those days the UNP was brought to power by three forces, mainly India, United States of American (USA) and the Tamil Separatist community. They were openly supporting the UNP and attacking President Rajapaksa’s Government.
\nIf somebody claims that China is behind Rajapaksa’s comeback, actually China is the financial contributor to the government.
\nDespite this, Government’s leader continuously abusing China for decades.
\nIn Parliament we do not accept the leadership of President Mathripala Sirisena and we do not attend any meetings conducted by President Sirisena, therefore, we do not accept his leadership.
\nBut I was elected as a United People Freedom Alliance (UPFA) member from the people.
\n?But without the UPFA, individuals in the JO will be nowhere. Is that right?
\nA: It is not true. Because people are not bothered about the party people are concerned about the policies.
\nAnd Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP) has not contested under their ‘Hand’ symbol a single election since 1991, but they come in different names, still people embrace them as long as their qualities are favourable to them.
\nPeople are worried about the action plan, policies and the leaders more than the symbols, parties and the colours.<\/p>\n

?Were you also involved in the clash that happened in Parliament when Sarath Fonseka was giving a statement with regard to the removal of former President Rajapaksa’s security?
\nA: I also got some minor injuries after the clash. We tried to sort the issue out. Actually we enter Parliament to verbally deal with issues and that is what we were doing, but the Speaker going against the order paper, decided to allow Minister Sarath Fonseka to sling mud at former President Rajapaksa.
\nHe can’t do that according to the rules of Parliament but Dinesh Gunawardena raised an issue about slinging mud against former President Rajapaksa and they should have moved to the next step in the Agenda which was oral questions but the Speaker allowed Fonseka to make a statement but we protested and we urged the speaker to stop Fonseka.
\nBecause of the partiality of the Speaker we shouted and protested disturbing Fonseka. Meanwhile, Deputy Minister Palitha Thewarapperuma attacked Prasanna Ranaweera who was shouting as well.
\nThis turned into an ugly clash between the Government and the Joint Opposition.
\nWe have to clearly say that we did not enter Parliament to fight but to argue, therefore, we denounced the action of Deputy Minister Thewarapperuma and are taking legal action against him for assaulting Ranaweera.<\/p>\n

?Is the PHU registered as a political party?
\nA: There is no procedure to register political parties in Sri Lanka. What should apply is, if a party is in existence for more than a year it should be recognized by the Election Commission.
\nHowever, there are 63 political parties in Sri Lanka and only 16 are represented in Parliament. Therefore, I am not only an MP, I was also elected to Parliament with a very high number of votes, therefore, we have no difficulty in getting Election Commission’s recognition when the legal barrier is over.<\/p>\n

?At the upcoming elections, will the PHU join an alliance or go as an individual party?
\nA: It will be decided at that time considering the political situation because if there are other political parties who think in the very same manner that we think it is always advisable to form an alliance.
\nIf there is no political party in the same line of thinking, we have no choice but to contest alone.
\nAs I explained before we found the SLFP has not contested alone after 1991 but colleagues of the alliance think alike so why should they contest alone and it is not illegal to contest together to build a bigger force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lankesh Gooneratne\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today The Joint Opposition (JO) is a Sri Lankan organization led by Sri Lankans, financed by Sri Lankans and looks after the interest of Sri Lankans, Udaya Gammanpila of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) told Ceylon Today in an interview. Excerpts: ?How was the response of the people at Kirulapone during the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54563","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=54563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}