{"id":77201,"date":"2018-05-07T15:16:45","date_gmt":"2018-05-07T22:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=77201"},"modified":"2018-05-07T15:16:45","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T22:16:45","slug":"president-says-he-wont-retire-in-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/05\/07\/president-says-he-wont-retire-in-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"President says he won\u2019t retire in 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>President Maithripala Sirisena, yesterday, announced that he would not retire from politics in 2020, as a lot more remained to be done for the country. Addressing the SLFP May Day rally, at Chenkalady, Batticaloa, the President said the country needed many more honest politicians.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The country does not need corrupt politicians. There are no political leaders who love the people. Some dream of forming a government in 2020. We will support a programme which promotes reconciliation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>President Sirisena said those who dreamt of capturing power did not genuinely care for the poor and the people should be able to see their duplicity. The country had got an opportunity to achieve development, using the goodwill and the trust of the international community.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Politicians must be honest and we need a group of honest leaders. Some say we are weak, but we will emerge stronger in the near future,&#8221; Sirisena said.<\/p>\n<p>The President noted that trade unions and the working class could play a significant role in the reconciliation process.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some political groups disparage what we have done to promote reconciliation. We must understand that we can\u2019t solve all the problems with the help of guns.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The Island President Maithripala Sirisena, yesterday, announced that he would not retire from politics in 2020, as a lot more remained to be done for the country. Addressing the SLFP May Day rally, at Chenkalady, Batticaloa, the President said the country needed many more honest politicians. &#8220;The country does not need corrupt politicians. There [&hellip;]<\/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-77201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77201","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=77201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}