{"id":92953,"date":"2019-09-12T22:54:51","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T04:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=92953"},"modified":"2019-09-12T15:51:47","modified_gmt":"2019-09-12T22:51:47","slug":"what-makes-it-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/09\/12\/what-makes-it-different\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes it different?"},"content":{"rendered":"

S. AKURUGODA<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

As reported in the media, Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe is to hold crucial talks with his deputy Sajith \u00a0Premadasa amid a deepening crisis over their party\u2019s presidential candidacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although there were\ndisputes among the hierarchy of the UNP back in 1988 on similar matters the\nissues were not taken out onto the streets like today. Whatever the outcome of\nthe meeting, the obvious question is what makes it different to the country whether\nthe presidential candidate is Ranil or Sajith. The easiest way to get some idea\nis to compare the ruling periods of Ranil\u2019s uncle J.R.Jayawardane (JR J) and\nRanil with those of Sajith\u2019s father R.Premadasa.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranil\u2019s political\nideologies are heavily in line with the west similar to JRJ. On the other hand,\nSajith is promising to follow his father\u2019s footsteps if elected president. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 UNP, under JRJ, which came to\npower promising a Dharmista Samajayak<\/em>\u201d\ncultivated a \u2018bicycle chain\u2019 culture to beat opponents, mass rigging of\nelections, thuggery, an underworld, etc. and was said to have practiced same\nwith the full patronage of its highest level.  We remember how civil rights of the late Prime\nMinister and the leader of the SLFP Mrs. Bandaranaike were expunged using the\nmammoth parliamentary powers and how she was kept out of the main political\nstream throughout the UNP regime led by JRJ as President and R.Premadasa as PM).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One could ask the question, remembering\nhow personalities like Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra were beaten up when\nparticipating in a protest rally, whether anyone had the freedom to protest\nwhen the \u2018bicycle chain\u2019 culture was at its peak. One could also ask how the\nSupreme Court judges were humiliated for exercising their judicial freedom by\ndelivering a right judgment in favour of Mrs. Vivienne Goonawardane and the\nreaction of the JRJ regime at that time. The repercussions of the \u2018kalu\njuliya<\/em>\u2019 were quite evident and continued for several decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the short-sighted policies of\nthe UNP led by JRJ and then followed by R. Premadasa, thousands of lives of\nSinhala youths, who were forced to take-up arms against suppression (among many\nother things), were lost during the infamous \u2018bheesana samaya<\/em>\u2019.  People of this country remembered atrocities\ncommitted under \u2018bheesana samaya<\/em>\u2019 and since then the  UNP (once considered as a \u2018one party\u2019\npolitical giant) was rejected several times by the people of this until 2015,\nexcept its narrow win in 2002 with the support of LTTE and other parties formed\non racial groupings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 During\nthe short period in power, 2002-2005, Ranil signed an unconstitutional and\nhence illegal agreement with a murderer, Prabhakaran, who was wanted by the\nInterpol and was sentenced to 200 years imprisonment by the high court of the\ncountry. An enormous support was given to the terrorist outfit during his\ntenure of office under this treacherous agreement. Fortunately, the people of\nthis country was clever enough to sense the danger posted on the national\nsecurity and the sovereignty of the country and to defeat the UNP and its\nshort-sighted leader twice, once in 1994 and then in 2005. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire country is now aware of what\nthe UNP regime (which came to power in 2015 promising a Yahapalanayak<\/em>\u201d ) has done, commencing from its notorious Bond Scam,\nhunting political opponents, selling national assets,  disrespecting rights of the people by not\nholding elections,  completely disregarding\ncountry\u2019s national security and the economy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the presidential aspirants of the\nUNP, Ranil and Sajith, who are confused and apparently depressed due to their\nown failures, could not yet feel the heartbeat of the people and the dangers\nfacing the country today. Instead they are still singing the old songs of\nmaximum devolution\u201d to please the extremist racial elements aiming their votes\nto stay in power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

S.\nAKURUGODA<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. AKURUGODA As reported in the media, Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe is to hold crucial talks with his deputy Sajith \u00a0Premadasa amid a deepening crisis over their party\u2019s presidential candidacy. Although there were disputes among the hierarchy of the UNP back in 1988 on similar matters the issues were not taken out onto the streets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92953","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\/92953","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=92953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}