{"id":87245,"date":"2019-04-15T14:20:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T21:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=87245"},"modified":"2019-04-15T14:20:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T21:20:53","slug":"candidature-of-mr-gotabaya-rajapaksa-for-the-next-presidential-election-is-confirmed-by-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/04\/15\/candidature-of-mr-gotabaya-rajapaksa-for-the-next-presidential-election-is-confirmed-by-people\/","title":{"rendered":"CANDIDATURE OF MR GOTABAYA RAJAPAKSA FOR THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IS CONFIRMED BY PEOPLE"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Candidature\nfor the next presidential election has become a complex problem to all\npolitical parties in Sri Lanka as the party politics in the country has become\ncorrupt, undercutting and involved in many disguise cunning practices.  It is a nature not only in Sri Lanka, but\nalso in other democratic countries in the world. In USA political parties are\ngiven more than one-year time to select the next presidential candidate and the\nprocess is democratically designed to elect the candidate from the votes of party\nmembers. This procedure is to give people opportunities to consider broader\nspectrum of views in relation to policies, past behaviour of candidates and\nmany other areas. It is an exemplary procedure for Sri Lanka to adapt in the\nprocess of selecting a presidential candidate. \nIn Sri Lanka the general practice was the leader of a major political\nparty has been supposed, to select as the candidate for the presidential\nelection.  This system had a possibility\nto continuing, but Mr. J.R. Jayawardena\u2019s astute action after 1978 has\nradically changed the implied practice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nUNP government elected in 1977 had a hidden intention to destroy the opposition\nSLFP and the easy way to do it was working against civil abilities of Mrs\nSirimao Bandaranaike, whose behaviour had been subject to severe criticism of\nthe right-wing as her government nationalised lands, newspaper organizations\nand some privately-owned companies.  The\nresult of the civil disabilities case against Mrs Sirimao Bandaranaike and Mr\nFelix R. Dias Bandaranaike was creating serious problems to the leadership of\nSLFP.  Since then the issue of the\ncandidature for the presidential election was arose and now, we can see that\nthe problem is continuing without abiding rule or tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n19th<\/sup> amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka was a complex\nconstitutional provision and when it was passed by the parliament, general\npublic and the members of the parliament and the president had no idea or clear\nunderstanding of the hidden intention of the constitutional provision, now it\nhas clearly revealed or come to light that hidden focus of the 19th<\/sup>\namendment was to taking revenge from the Rajapaksa family, but it was not to\nre-establish the good governance and democracy in the country.  There may had some democratic and good\ngovernance features, despite such good aspects, the manipulators of the 19th<\/sup>\namendment was to take revenge from the Rajapaksa family. The greedy people of\nNGOs and rejected members of Marxist political parties associated with the good\ngovernance movement, most probably gaining financial incentives (bribery) and\nwith a view to gaining the political popularity of the Rajapaksa family to\nthem. In fact, what happened was gaining unpopularity of the movement as\nyahapalana advocates in the country did not expect and they were not happened\nin the history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\npeople have realised the truth and now it is obvious from the actions of breakdown\nyahapalana politicians that the use of the candidature for the next\npresidential election as a talking point to coverup the corruptions in the\nregime. The dismissal of the aspirer candidature of Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa has\nbecome a failed strategy of yahapana advocates and the real experience in Sri\nLanka has come to light Mr. Rajapaksa would be the strong candidate to attract\nvotes of people without political, racial, religious and any other differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nincidents reported during the past several weeks and the return of Mr. Gotabaya\nRajapaksa to Sri Lanka as planned and his reception by people at Katunayake\nAirport has strongly confirmed the candidature of Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa by\npeople, despite political engineering of some political parties or personnel to\ndisgrace Mr. Rajapaksa.  The vital fact\nabout this short term experience is that Sri Lankans must not get deceived to\nfabrications in internet programs and it is a lesson to internet programs such\nas Facebook, utube and others to strict or restrict information publish about\nSri Lanka as some people of the country use these internet programs to destroy\nthe credibility of such programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr.\nGotabaya Rajapaksa has strong respect from people in Sri Lanka and overseas as\nhe had not associated with lower grade politics to gain political advantages.\nHe won the hearts of people by his work related to military and civil\nwork.  He has rich experience in military\nand civil work and has proven that he will be the choice of people without\npolitical difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now,\nMr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa has an opportunity to openly talk to people and tell\nthat I will be a candidate for the next presidential election and address all\npolitical parties to give support without any difference. This is required\nbecause about 25% of floating votes of UNP is willing to support Mr Gotabaya\nRajapaksa as he is a firmed candidate with policy making abilities and\npositively considering issues in Sri Lanka to take forward consistent with\nmodernization.  Other potential\ncandidates cannot openly talk to people as they have no knowledge, experience,\nskills and attributes like Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa and people have no trust on\nthem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistically\nbased on the census of 2012, 28.7% of voters in Sri Lanka are in Western\nProvince, 12.6% in Central Province, 12.2% in Southern Province and 11.7% in\nNorth Western and 34.8% live in other provinces.  This means that Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa must\nfocus on his campaign mainly in these provinces and reasonably convincing\ncampaign should go to other provinces. \nHe must be with a uniform message that his priority is people to give\nequality without racial, religious and divisional differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Racial\nmix of voters are 74.9% Sinhala while 11.2% Sri Lankan Tamils, 4.2% Indian\nTamils and 9.3% Sri Lankan Muslims.  Mr\nRajapaksa needs attracting 80% of Sinhala votes, 6% of Lanka Tamil votes, 2 %\nIndian Tamil votes and 6% of Muslim votes to show a great victory of\npresidential election in the history. To attract such a huge vote base need\ngiving a promise to create an equality to all races and religions with\nmodernization, would be the strategy. The current government cannot do it\nbecause they are in the power, but they have not done it. The heavy weights of\nthe current government have engaged in serious corrupt work creating tremendous\nproblems to people.  How can trust a\nregime that mislead people again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri\nLanka\u2019s population consists of 70.1% Buddhist, 12.6% Hindu and 9.7% Muslim and\n7.6% other religions such as Christians and other.  If Mr Rajapaksa attracts 60% of Buddhist\nvotes, 6% Hindu votes, 6% of Muslim votes and 5% Christian votes, it would be\nthe greatest victory in the history. \nThis situation could be achieved only by giving equality to each\nreligion and promising to make necessary legal provisions for\nanti-discrimination.  People in Sri Lanka\nneeds to say we are Sri Lankans with different faces, but our aim is to\nconstruct the country to liveable place to everybody. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nstatistics clearly indicates that Mr Rajapaksa\u2019s policy must concentrate on the\nunity and a united Sri Lanka with equality for people in all races, castes and\nreligions. This is the environment that we can observe in Western countries and\nMr. Rajapaksa should promise to make legal provisions to eliminate\ndiscrimination.  The yahapalana regime\nhas failed to enact laws to prevent discrimination because the main partner of\nthe yahapalana regime, TNA did not agree with elimination of discrimination as\nthey wanted to continue caste and religious differences in the country, with\ncaste dictions TNA wants to establish power in Tamil dominating areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nreconciliation process was an essential role after ending the LTTE war,\nhowever, it did not effectively work and the reconciliation process under the\nyahapalana regime was a cheated activity of some members of the government that\nsupported to gain financial advantages to selected people and it was not\nsupported to a really established reconciliation between Tamil, Sinhala and\nMuslim communities.  Mr Gotabaya\nRajapaksa needs to initiate a true reconciliation process, which heals wounds\nbetween all three communities and it shouldn\u2019t be a process attracting money to\npockets of operators of the reconciliation process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr\nGotabaya Rajapaksa should give strong economic policy focus to achieve per\ncapita income of US $ 15000 in 2030, US$ 150 billion foreign reserves,\nstability of currency unit in domestic and foreign terms, a government budget\nsurplus, positive outcomes in the balance of payment and a sustainable economic\ngrowth more than 8% rate.  Mr. Rajapaksa\nmust be able to give leadership to maintain a balanced foreign policy\nreconciling India and China and attract foreign direct investments from all\ncountries especially from USA, China, India, Japan, Korea, Middle East, EU and\nother countries.  When the economy is\nrecording a higher rate of growth, debt is not an issue but the country needs\nto maintain total government debt at 60% of GDP.  The internal economic policy stress to\nbalanced growth with a balance urbanization, which would create a large volume\nof employment opportunities and absorb local people to jobs, it is an essentially\nneeded policy correction and reforming education and training for local people\nfor employment-oriented education.  Mr.\nRajapaksa has already talked about modernization like in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nmust be vigilance on his own supporters and many of his supporters may have\ndishonest intention and corrupt elements. Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa did a good job\nfor the country but it was outweighed by the malice propaganda and animosity of\npeople with him.  Now those people are\nwith Mr Ranil Wickramasinghe, Mr. Sajith Premadasa and Mr Karu Jayasuriya and\nany other potential candidate for the next presidential election. The crisis in\nUNP is how to find a right candidate with excellent experience in military and\ncivil service.  People of Sri Lanka are\nknowledgeable and they don\u2019t consider that playing cricket is the best\nqualification for the presidential candidate. \n          <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY EDWARD THEOPHILUS Candidature for the next presidential election has become a complex problem to all political parties in Sri Lanka as the party politics in the country has become corrupt, undercutting and involved in many disguise cunning practices.  It is a nature not only in Sri Lanka, but also in other democratic countries in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-edward-theophilus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87245","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=87245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}