28 December 2021 12:00 am Views - 46
By Kelum Bandara
While launching a scathing attack on the present government, former President Maithripala Sirisena stressed the need to form a new rule based on a new vision and a mission to resuscitate the country from the present mess. He said the proposed rule should be different to the traditional forms of governments that had existed so far.
Addressing a meeting of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)’s Kotte electoral organisation on December 26, Mr. Sirisena said the country had plunged into an unprecedented crisis, and no one from the international community would come to rescue it because of corruption and frauds.
The former president who is now a Polonnaruwa district MP said the country was heading towards a food shortage, and people would experience scarcity of essential items such as rice in another couple of months.
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will propose conditions to the present government. They will be more serious than the ones placed before my government at that time. The IMF placed conditions to my government. Some were serious. But, I negotiated and declined to implement them given their implications on the country at large. Recently, an envoy of a western embassy visited me at my residence. I was told the western countries would only channel their assistance to Sri Lanka through the UN system and the World Bank,” he said.
Asserting that no party had formed a government on its own, he said 12 political parties had contributed to ensure 6.9 million votes to the present government though Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) tried to stake a sole claim for it.
He emphasised the need to make a political formation comprising left-leaning, progressive forces.
“Today, the country is caught in a web of creepers. We find crises in social, political and international spheres. There is miserable failure in the management of international relations,” he said.