{"id":97974,"date":"2020-01-19T18:27:23","date_gmt":"2020-01-20T01:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=97974"},"modified":"2020-01-19T18:27:23","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T01:27:23","slug":"the-fork-tongued-stance-of-the-unp-on-the-mcc-pact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/19\/the-fork-tongued-stance-of-the-unp-on-the-mcc-pact\/","title":{"rendered":"The fork-tongued stance of the UNP on the MCC pact"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEDIA RELEASE Mahinda Rajapaksa Prime Minister<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

We\nhear the newly appointed Opposition Leader and other Parliamentarians of the\nUNP making frequent references to the controversial MCC pact. The Opposition\nLeader states on the public platform that the MCC pact should be torn up and\nthat he will not allow the present government to implement it. Last week, the\nUNP Opposition Leader was even seen telling the Most Venerable Mahanayaka\nTheras that the MCC pact should be torn up. Other MPs of the UNP have been\nmaking similar statements. I have been listening to all this with amazement. Just\nweeks ago, the present Opposition Leader was a leading member of the UNP\nCabinet in his capacity as the Deputy Leader of the UNP. With only a matter of\ndays to the Presidential election, the UNP Cabinet officially decided to sign\nthe MCC pact. The UNP Prime Minister told the media that this pact would be\nsigned before the Presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nthat occasion, I as the then Opposition Leader, issued a written statement\ntelling the UNP government that they should not under any circumstances sign\nthat agreement without informing Parliament and the general public about its\ncontents. I also pointed out to them that it was unethical and unacceptable to\nhastily sign an agreement with another country with just days to go to the\nPresidential election. My stand was that the decision whether to sign the MCC\npact or not should be left to whoever obtains the people\u2019s mandate at the\nPresidential election. The present Opposition Leader who was then the Deputy\nLeader of the UNP and a key member of the UNP Cabinet remained completely\nsilent about the MCC pact that was being promoted by his own government. He did\nnot make any mention of it even during the Presidential election campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet we now see him going\naround the country telling the new government how they should handle the MCC\nissue. Politics should have some basic ethical and moral standards. When the\nUNP government was arbitraily trying to sign this pact in haste with just days\nto go to the Presidential election, the Ven. Ududumbara Kashyapa Thera had to\nstage a protest fast to put a stop to it.\nPowerful members of the present Opposition Leader\u2019s faction in the UNP such as\nformer Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera, were also in favour of signing the\nMCC pact as quickly as possible. Both factions of the UNP had\nthe identical policy with regard to the MCC pact. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One can form a fair idea of\nthe present Opposition Leader\u2019s political morality by what he is now saying\nabout the MCC pact in the belief that the people have forgotten what the UNP\nwas trying to do just two months ago. The President has appointed a committee\nto study the contents of the MCC pact that the UNP Cabinet approved last October.\nOnce the findings of this Committee are available, we will inform Parliament\nand the general public about the course of action we intend taking with regard\nto this matter. Under no circumstances will our government sign any agreement\nwith a foreign country without informing the Parliament\nand the people. Furthermore, our government will not sign any agreement that is\ninimical to the interests of this country. That is the difference between the\nUNP and its allies on the one hand and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna led\ngovernment on the other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prime Minister<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEDIA RELEASE Mahinda Rajapaksa Prime Minister We hear the newly appointed Opposition Leader and other Parliamentarians of the UNP making frequent references to the controversial MCC pact. The Opposition Leader states on the public platform that the MCC pact should be torn up and that he will not allow the present government to implement it. […]<\/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-97974","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\/97974","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=97974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}