{"id":95435,"date":"2019-11-20T15:58:10","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T22:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=95435"},"modified":"2019-11-20T15:58:10","modified_gmt":"2019-11-20T22:58:10","slug":"condolence-message-on-the-passing-away-of-former-prime-minister-hon-d-m-jayaratne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/11\/20\/condolence-message-on-the-passing-away-of-former-prime-minister-hon-d-m-jayaratne\/","title":{"rendered":"Condolence message on the passing away of former Prime Minister Hon. D.M.Jayaratne"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">Mahinda Rajapaksa Leader of the Opposition<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>20 November&nbsp;2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was\nsaddened to hear of the passing away of former Prime Minister Hon.\nD.M.Jayaratne. He was one of my oldest political friends and a comrade in the\nprogressive politics of this country. When I was first elected to Parliament in\n1970, Hon. D.M.Jayaratne also entered Parliament as the\nMP for Gampola. He was a powerful platform orator and a formidable debater in\nour party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1977 when the Sri Lanka Freedom Party went into the\nopposition, and our party experienced difficult times, he was a leader who\nplayed an important role in safeguarding the party. In 1989 he\nand I once again entered Parliament as opposition MPs. During that era, the anti-democratic\nand anti-people activities of the UNP government reached its peak. During those\ndark days, Hon. D.M.Jayaratne was a pillar of strength to his political party\nand the opposition in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 1994, Hon.D.M.Jayaratne and I became Ministers for the first\ntime in the SLFP led government formed that year. In 2010 when\nI was elected President for the second time, Hon. D.M.Jayaratne was appointed\nas the Prime Minister.&nbsp;&nbsp;During his long career as a Parliamentarian,\nhe earned the respect and affection of people of the country in general and\nespecially the people of the Kandyan provinces whom he represented in\nParliament. He also had the good fortune to receive the blessings of the\nVenerable Mahanayake Theras and the Maha Sangha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a\nMinister, Hon.D.M.Jayaratne showed a special interest in agriculture and\nenvironmental protection. His name will always be associated with the\nAmbuluwawa environmental project which was his brainchild. It is now a major\ntourist attraction in the country.&nbsp;I wish to convey my heartfelt condolences to his wife Mrs\nAnula Yapa and his son Parliamentarian Anuradha Jayaratne and other members of\nhis family and the people of the Kandyan provinces and the country in general,\nwho looked up to him as a leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Leader of the Opposition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mahinda Rajapaksa Leader of the Opposition 20 November&nbsp;2019 I was saddened to hear of the passing away of former Prime Minister Hon. D.M.Jayaratne. He was one of my oldest political friends and a comrade in the progressive politics of this country. When I was first elected to Parliament in 1970, Hon. D.M.Jayaratne also entered Parliament [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mahinda-rajapaksa","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95435","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=95435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95435\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}