Friday 14 August 2015

Democracy in the mouth of Maithripala Sirisena or Ranil Wickramasinghe is a meaningless word?


A country’s Constitution is sacro sanct. Writing Constitutions each time a new government is formed by a new political party  is not healthy for democracy. If there is some thing wrong it should be put right by bringing in an Amendments. But until then the Constitution has to be respected, and the  Judiciary should be independent.

But what is happening in Sri Lanka post 8 January,2015. The Constitution has been breached, at the pleasure of the new President Sirisena  and the Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe.  The Judiciary has been ridiculed.

After the election of Maithripala Sirisena , the Constitution was ignored appointing Ranil Wickramasinghe as the Prime Minister when there was  already a Prime Minister –D.M.Jayaratne and his Cabinet of Ministers. The unconstitutionally appointed Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe appointed a new cabinet of UNP Ministers. All this was done arbitrarily and unconstitutionally and therefore illegal and undemocratic.

The new President again ignored the Constituition and re appointed a Constitutionally , therefore legally impeached Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranaike, and then allowed her to retire, and unconstitutionally therefore illegally appointed K.Siripavan as the new  Chief Justice  dismissing the Chief Justice Mohan Pieris who was appointed Constitutionally, by a letter signed by the President Sirisena.

Where is Democracy in all this ?




After, all this exercise of the new President  Sirisena and his unconstitutionally appointed Prime Minister, there are in Sri Lanka two governments one functioning and lead by an unconstitutionally appointed therefore an illegal Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe and a non functioning  constitutionally appointed therefore a legal Government lead by D.M.Jayaratne.

And despite this ridiculous situation, an unconstitutional therefore illegal UNP Government has appointed a FCID to prosecute all suspected  of bribery and corruption and put them in Ramand Jail. This unusual government even got its illegal FCID (illegal because appointed by an unconstitutionally appointed Prime Minister) to prosecute the former President his wife, brothers, sons, friends,  the managing  Directors of Companies that functioned when the previous government was in power.

All these actions were  not democratic, constitutional or legal. But in a Speech on the 14 July,2015 the President Sirisena spoke of the Democratic revolution that  occurred on the 8th January,2015.  

 Mark Antony said in his oration at the funeral of Caesar, referring to the Senators who murdered  Caesar stabbing him to death, “ But Brutus said they are all honourable men.”

There is a genral election scheduled for the 17th August,2015 , normally under a Democratic system the President being the President of every one without distinction of race, colour , religion or political affiliation , should remain impartial and independent ?

But the President of Sri Lanka Sirisena shows his partiality to one political party and write to  a Candidate Mahinda Rajapakse, even before the election is held , that he will not be appointed the Prime Minister. 

This is strange coming from a  President who said in a long speech on 14 July,2015,  "I will remain impartial in the coming election and urge the people to select those who are suitable to march forward with the January 08 mandate" 

Democracy! Democracy !! thy name is smeared.

The President Sirisena continued his speech, “Along with these developments, there came the Controversial Central Bank Bond issue. A Committee was appointed and the report was came out. The parliamentary Audit Committee too started the working on this issue. Generally, Mr. Ranil Wickramesinghe has a reputation among the people as a person free of corruption. However, on several occasions, I suggested to the Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe that it would do good to his reputation if the Central Bank Governor resigns his post.”

But did his Prime Minister the clean Mr.Ranil Wickramasinghe listen to him ? If he did  it would have shown how much  Mr.Clean Ranil respect him after some of his  Executive powers were taken away !!!

Then the President Sirisena  speaks poetically about  democracy. “Your criticism of me in the past few days reflect the blossoming of democracy in this country and how you are making use of the massive outpour of democracy in this country.”

Is democracy in Sri Lanka blooming as he pretends it to be or is there a massive outpour of democracy?

Well the reader is to Judge. 

Recently the President Sirisena who likes long speeches and long letters wrote a long letter to Mahinda Rajpakse a candidate at the forth coming General election saying again that he will not be appointed Prime Minister even if the party under which he gets a majority of Votes. That must be in terms of his “blooming” Democracy.

Mahinda Rajapakse who when he was the President respected both Democracy and the Constitution  has written to him  a short letter in reply stating that as he bowed to the  people and accepted their decision on the 9th January , he hopes that the President Sirisena would do the same.

The President Sirisena who had been in office for nearly seven months  should know that he is the guardian of the Constitution of the country, and should be really democratic instead of paying lip service to democracy.

Finally another act of democracy by the President ? 

The Colombo District Court today issued an enjoining order preventing Anura Priyadharshana Yapa and Susil Premajayantha from acting and discharging duties as the General Secretaries of the SLFP and UPFA respectively until August 28, 2015.
President Maithripala Sirisena in his capacity as the Chairman of the SLFP and UPFA has suspended the party memberships of Anura Priyadharshana Yapa and Susil Premajayantha and has also removed them from the posts of General Secretary. 
 Independent Judiciary ?
 “ tensed situation erupted in the Colombo Chief Magistrate's Court yesterday as Lawyers accused each other in abusive language when they argued as to why former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Central Bank Governor Ajith Nivard Cabral cannot be summoned to Court for misappropriation of Rs 34.7 billion in Greek Bonds issue.

The incident erupted when Colombo Additional Magistrate Chandima Liyanage issued summons on the Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran and his son-in-law Arjun Aloysius over the misappropriation of Rs 30 billion in issuing Treasury Bonds, while postponing the case until 30 October.


The Voters on the 17 August, 2015, please reflect what it would be if the Elephant Symbol gets a greater number of Votes, than the Betel Leaf.

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