MR says anyone has a right to form new party
Posted on August 22nd, 2016
by Oruwala Sarath de Silva Courtesy The Island
August 22, 2016, 10:59 pm
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday said nobody had a right to prevent the formation of new political parties.
Rajapaksa, addressing the Samurdhi officers at their 19th annual convention at the Samurdhi hall, Battaramulla said that it did not mean that he was planning to form a new party. However, threats and intimidation should not be directed against those who wanted to form new parties.
He said the government had become a pawn of the western powers and was bent on privatising state ventures and suspending the development projects launched by the previous administration.
It is also deviating from Bandaranaike policies,” he said.
The incumbent government had come to power only for a two year period and now they had decided to extend the pact for five years, Rajapaksa said.
The former President said “We didn’t fight the Tamils or Muslims. The fight was against the terrorists and we created an environment to live as one nation, one country.”
The previous government had re-habilitated over 12,500 people and restored the infrastructure destroyed by the 30-year conflict. “We developed the Jaffna Hospital and there are 10 surgical wards on a single floor”, he said.
The percentage of students entering the Jaffna University had increased and the standard of education in the north had reached a higher level, the former President said.
He said the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe alliance had come to power promising a change, but it had failed to deliver.
Rajapaksa said even former Presidents J. R. Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa had also bellowed rhetoric towards the end of their governments.
“I have no hatred or anger. The incumbent government should work with more restraint,” he said.
“It is a right of the working class to strike and it is wrong to assault them,” Rajapaksa said
August 23rd, 2016 at 2:41 am
It is high time that a new political party is created. The symbol can be the ‘mal pohottuwa’ as just prior to the general election, a new political party was registered under this symbol. All those SLFPers who are totally fed up with this treacherous yahapalayana government can then join this new political party.
It is best to do this as soon as possible in order to get ready for the local government elections, to counter the treacherous OMP Act, to counter VAT increases, to counter the low prices offered to rice farmers, tea growers, rubber growers, to counter any attempt to provide any more powers to provincial councils than they have at present especially police, land or fiscal powers and to prevent the illegal merger of the North and the East and any attempt to change the unitary status of the country via unwanted constitutional changes, to counter the signing of ETCA, to counter the building of the Hanuman Bridge, to ensure that no Sri Lankan Forces member is harassed by setting up of hybrid courts or even domestic courts and to safeguard Sri Lankan armed forces from bogus war crimes charges to be produced via the OMP.
Also to counter the wide ranging privatization of state assets programme of the UNP which envisages privatising even healthcare, water, electricity etc., to ensure that the rice farmer is empowered and not destroyed as this yahapalanaya government is doing and to ensure that 2600 years of rice farming is not destroyed, to ensure that other crop growers get a fair deal for their produce, to encourage local industries and companies by taxing imports, to create and empower and rehabilitate local industries like the Valachchanai paper plant, Puttlam, and KKS cement factories, Kanthale and Pelawatta sugar factories, to build new tyre producing factories, to build new fruit juice, jam producing factories, to create a more efficient food storage and transport to market system including proper storage and refrigeration of vegetables, fruits etc., to encourage local companies by taxing imports, to encourage school leavers to take up vocational training programmes and to create a vocational training to youth employment creation programme where youth are helped to start up their own SMEs, to change our diet from a wheat based diet to a rice based diet, to encourage farmers to produce our own milk by encouraging the dairy industry and to build factories to produce our own powdered milk etc.
Unless a new party is formed now, all those people opposed to this treacherous yahapalanaya government will have nowhere to turn and nowhere to go and if the disaffected SLFPers do not take up this opportunity to form a new party, others definitely will. Also once the yahapalanaya commits all treacherous acts possible and betrays the country , it will be too late to form new political parties since there will not be a country left to govern after all the treacherous acts are completed by this yahapalanaya government.
August 23rd, 2016 at 3:52 am
Sri Lanka’s future will depend on whether a new party is formed now or not by the disaffected SLFPers. It is now or never. There is no point forming new parties once this treacherous yahapalanaya government has finished committing all the treacherous deeds they are committing at present like more powers given to provincial councils inclusive of land, police and fiscal powers and illegally merging the North and the East, charging our brave Sri Lankan Forces with bogus war crimes using hybrid or even domestic courts, privatizing everything, destroying 2600 years of rice farming, signing ETCA, building the Hanuman bridge etc.
Once all this is done there will not be a Sri Lanka left to govern. Therefore it is imperative that a new political party is formed now before it is too late for Sri Lanka when it will be of no point complaining once all the treacherous acts are committed and completed.