Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday asked for the support of all Parliamentarians to go for a General Election to let the people decide a Government of their choice to get out of the prevailing political standoff.
Addressing Parliament for the first time since assuming duties as the PM, he reminded that all Parliaments elected in 1947, 1951, 1956 and 1960 were dissolved prematurely to hold elections under similar situations in the past to let the people enjoy their sovereign powers to elect a Government of their choice.
The PM began his speech replying to the UNP MPs, who claimed that he was not the PM but an MP following the No-Confidence Motion.
“Remember that I have held various titles before, including the tile of the President. I have held the Prime Ministerial portfolio and various Ministerial portfolios before. I do not care about titles. This post is no big deal for me. It does not matter for me if I become an MP or PM or just ‘Mahinda Rajapaksa’. Do not think that I am speaking because I want to be the PM,” he replied.
Then he explained the circumstances which made him accept the PM post. “The President had explained the reasons for dissolving the former government and establishing an interim government till the next general elections. As at October 26 People were under tremendous pressure owing to the former government’s economic mismanagement caused by the fuel price increases from a pricing formula and the depreciation of rupee value.
The cost of living was increasing rapidly every single day and there was an unprecedented tax burden on people following the robbing of central bank through the means of Treasury bond scam. Interest rates had been doubled. The airports, harbours and profit making public ventures were up for the sale to foreigners. There were moves to outright selling of lands to foreigners and laws were amended to suit those moves. Actions had been taken to enter into trade agreements giving callous disregard to the opposition, of opinions of experts and local businessmen. Huge bribes had been asked from investors. There had been public displeasure against the former government owing to those reasons among others,” he noted.
“We saw the President dissolving the former National Economic Commission and striving to mitigate the damage on the economic front. We have also heard of arguments during the cabinet meetings between the President and the former Prime minister who were at loggerheads. It is in that context we witnessed the expose with tape records of a conspiracy by a group of UNPers with some police officers to assassinate the President, former Defence Secretary. It is owing to these developments that the President took a decision to remove the UPFA members from the government,” he added.
“With the pulling out of the UPFA members the coalition government that had existed thereto was dissolved. Thereafter, the President with the powers vested in him invited to me accept the Prime Minister post and to form a government. There were two choices before me – one was to accept the invitation or to reject it. I could have responded to the President by telling him to continue with the UNP as he did for nearly four years because there was one more year to go for the completion of that government’s term. But we are the main force in the opposition. We are the biggest political party in the country. We are bound by the duty to come forward to avoid the country being sliding into disaster. We have a responsibility to support the President’s effort to prevent a disaster and to uphold the national interests. Accordingly I accepted the responsibility of saving the nation from further chaos and crisis,” he pointed out.
