{"id":57211,"date":"2016-08-01T19:52:27","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T01:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57211"},"modified":"2016-08-01T09:13:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T16:13:17","slug":"president-maithripala-sirisenas-comments-on-pada-yathra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/08\/01\/president-maithripala-sirisenas-comments-on-pada-yathra\/","title":{"rendered":"President \u00a0Maithripala Sirisena’s\u00a0 comments on Pada Yathra"},"content":{"rendered":"

S. Akurugoda<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Addressing a meeting in Mawanella , President Maithripala Sirisena has said that if the previous government had governed the country properly its members, currently in the Opposition, would not have had to hoof it until they got blisters on their soles. Speaking further, President has said ” <\/span>The previous government had boasted of mega development while plunging the country into debt to the tune of Rs. 90 billion”<\/em><\/p>\n

The previous government was led by a SLFP led coalition where the\u00a0 current President of the country Mr Maithripala Sirisena\u00a0 was a leading Cabinet Minister throughout the tenure of office of the government , until he joined the anti-Rajapaksha campaign \u00a0in order to be the Presidential Candidate opposing\u00a0 President\u00a0\u00a0 Mahinda Rajapaksa.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Are we to believe \u00a0that Mr Sirisena and\u00a0 the members of the previous government following him are not responsible and only the members in the Opposition are responsible for any wrongdoings of the previous government?<\/p>\n

Ironically, Mr Sirisena is the current President of the country and the\u00a0 leader of the very same SLFP lead coalition said to have been responsible for failing to govern the country properly for 11 years\u00a0 and\u00a0 were boasting of mega development while plunging the country into debt to the tune of Rs 90 million.<\/p>\n

The basic questions are whether there were any good things done by the previous government, and if so, who are responsible and\u00a0 what Mr Sirisena and the members of the previous government with him have done during the Rajapaksa rule to win the masses in order to be qualified for the current positions?<\/p>\n

As far as we are aware, there is a thing called ‘Collective Responsibility’ in a government with a Cabinet of Ministers and one cannot simply pass any wrongdoings\u00a0 \u00a0to one person and get the credit for the rest after being a member of\u00a0 that cabinet\u00a0 throughout\u00a0 its rule. Further Mr Sirisena was\u00a0 the Secretary\u00a0 General of that party, SLFP, throughout the previous administration and we have heard several speeches\u00a0 (and still on record) of Mr Sirisena upholding\u00a0 the its work and the\u00a0 leadership of\u00a0 Mr Rajapaksa.\u00a0 We also remember the \u00a0stories of Mr Sirisena\u00a0 telling us about Rajapaksa’s ‘Lamborghinis’ and ‘gold horses’ during his presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

As per media reports, there were massive crowds and protestors were joining the Pada Yathra enthusiastically. They were carrying\u00a0 banners and shouting slogans against the government\u2019s witch hunt against political opponents , arresting soldiers, removal of farmer subsidies, heavy taxes, \u2018constitutional death trap\u2019, postponement of local government elections, foreign war crime courts etc.<\/p>\n

The massive protest which we have not witnessed before during our lifetime is not against what\u00a0 Mr Sirisena and his followers have done during the \u00a011 years rule of the previous government, but for what Sirisena-Ranil led government has done since they came to power with the full blessings of the regional and western powers backed by anti-Rajapaksa \u00a0\u00a0elements, both in and outside the country.<\/p>\n

The various statements and promises made by the current rulers to grab the power and to remain in power, time to time, and the\u00a0 massive crowds and the protestors joining Pada Yathra reminds us the following statement of \u00a0Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America.<\/p>\n

” <\/em>You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”<\/em> –<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. Akurugoda Addressing a meeting in Mawanella , President Maithripala Sirisena has said that if the previous government had governed the country properly its members, currently in the Opposition, would not have had to hoof it until they got blisters on their soles. Speaking further, President has said ” The previous government had boasted of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s-akurugoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57211","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=57211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}