{"id":74907,"date":"2018-02-19T11:46:23","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T17:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=74907"},"modified":"2018-02-18T06:06:48","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T13:06:48","slug":"pohottuva-voters-are-being-taken-for-a-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/02\/19\/pohottuva-voters-are-being-taken-for-a-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"POHOTTUVA VOTERS ARE BEING TAKEN FOR A RIDE"},"content":{"rendered":"

DHARSHAN WEERASEKERA<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

As a Pohottuwa<\/em> voter I am appalled by what is happening, to wit:\u00a0 the attempt by certain Pohottuva bigwigs to set up or back an SLFP Government under Sirisena.\u00a0 I can\u2019t speak for others, but as far as I am concerned I didn\u2019t vote for the Pohottuva<\/em> in order to get Ranil ousted as PM.\u00a0 I voted in order to send the clearest possible message to Sirisena and his 45 SLFP\u2019ers that they have no moral or legal right to set up a \u2018National Government\u2019 with the UNP in the way that they did following the August 2015 Elections.<\/p>\n

I concede that, the UNP won 106 seats fair and square at the aforesaid elections, so they have the moral right to form a government as long as they can muster a simple majority in Parliament.\u00a0 But, what cannot be allowed \u2013 indeed what is quite outrageous, but in fact happened \u2013 is for Sirisena to get 45 SLFP MP\u2019s (some of whom had lost<\/em> the elections) to join the UNP and thereby permit the UNP to carry on a legislative program it would not otherwise have been able to do.<\/p>\n

As far as I\u2019m concerned, if the LG elections of 10th<\/sup> February gave any mandate at all to the Pohottova<\/em>, it was to function as the official Opposition until 2020.\u00a0 In other words, the voters expect the period between the present and 2020 to be a sort of \u2018probationary period\u2019 where Pohottuva<\/em> bigwigs must prove themselves worthy of the overwhelming victory that the voters are prepared to give them in 2020.<\/p>\n

Instead, what has happened?\u00a0 The SLPP is trying to form a Government by backing Sirisena\u2019s \u201945\u2019 \u2013 the very \u2018sleazebags\u2019 if I may use the word \u2013 that voters so emphatically rejected at the 10th<\/sup> February elections.\u00a0 Let\u2019s suppose an SLFP Government is established.\u00a0 What happens if, the new Government presents to Parliament a slightly modified version of the Constitution proposed in the Steering Committee Interim Report?<\/p>\n

For instance, what if the SLFP \u2018Government\u2019 proposes a new Constitution which does not refer to an \u2018Urumittu Nadu<\/em>,\u2019 and also contains clauses guaranteeing the primacy of Buddhism in the State, but with the substantive recommendations of the Interim Report \u2013 i.e. on the \u2018full implementation\u2019 of the 13th<\/sup> Amendment, eliminating the Concurrent List, making the office of the Provincial Governor a merely ceremonial one, etc \u2013 remaining exactly as they are.<\/p>\n

If enough UNP\u2019ers along with the TNA support such a document and give it a 2\/3 majority, does it mean that the Pohottuva<\/em> will see to it that the document is passed in Parliament?\u00a0 If this happens, what\u2019s the difference between a Ranil-led Government and a Nimal Sripala de Silva-led Government (according to the newspapers, De Silva is the person being pushed as the prospective PM)?<\/p>\n

Either way, the voters \u2013 and here I mean specifically the Sinhalas \u2013 are screwed!\u00a0 Meanwhile, the separatists, along with the foreign powers that oversaw Rajapaksa\u2019s downfall in 2015, get exactly what they want.\u00a0 So, as I said at the beginning, I am appalled, positively disgusted, by what is happening.<\/p>\n

Pohottuva<\/em> bigwigs need to get their act together, or they are going to start losing their voters.\u00a0 Now, some of them might say, \u2018Who cares if we lose one or two voters?\u00a0 We have thousands more.\u2019\u00a0 Fine.\u00a0 But, they should take a lesson from what happened to Al Gore in the 2000 U.S Presidential Elections.\u00a0 Al Gore lost Florida to George Bush by less than 500 votes (I think it was close to 250 votes) and with it the election.<\/p>\n

I reiterate that, as a Pohottuva<\/em> voter I did not give a mandate to the Pohottuva<\/em> in order for it to form a Government, or to help form one.\u00a0 I gave a mandate for it to function as the official Opposition, and to protect national interests \u2013 and by that I mean Sinhala interests \u2013 until such time a General Election is held and the People, and no one else, decide who is best suited to form a Government.<\/p>\n

If Pohottuva<\/em> bigwigs continue to act in a wishy-washy way, at one time seeming to embrace Sirisena and his 45 sleazebags, at another claiming that they want to function as the official Opposition, and yet another saying that all they want is to get rid of Ranil, at the next General Elections, I will vote for the UNP, or better yet, Sambanthan and his gang of scoundrels, because at least with those folks one knows what one is getting.<\/p>\n

If Pohottuva<\/em> bigwigs want to ignore the concerns of individual voters, they must know that, their Day of Judgment will surely come.\u00a0 Even though I am a Buddhist, I have learnt a new respect for the famous Biblical lines, \u2018[For it is written] Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DHARSHAN WEERASEKERA As a Pohottuwa voter I am appalled by what is happening, to wit:\u00a0 the attempt by certain Pohottuva bigwigs to set up or back an SLFP Government under Sirisena.\u00a0 I can\u2019t speak for others, but as far as I am concerned I didn\u2019t vote for the Pohottuva in order to get Ranil ousted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dharshan-weerasekera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74907","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=74907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}