“PRESIDENT RAJAPAKSA HAS NO SPACE FOR EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES”

There was a visible polarization after the results were released because the numbers show that the majority of the Sinhala Buddhists voted for Mr. Rajapaksa

Milinda Rajapaksha, the former Media Spokesperson for President Rajapaksa, stated that the fact that there is hatred against the supporters of Premadasa is an ‘exaggerated statement’. “After any election, there is a heated debate amongst the supporters of the candidate who won and who lost,” he stated.

Referring to the North and the East election results, Rajapaksha said “There was a visible polarization after the results were released because the numbers show that the majority of the Sinhala Buddhists voted for Mr. Rajapaksa and less votes came in his favour from the North and East. I think there should be a fair space for people to discuss and debate on that. This is the truth. We should see why those areas didn’t support Mr. Rajapaksa,”

He also remarked that President Rajapaksa has the responsibility of finding out what the expectations of the Sinhala Buddhists are and why they supported him. “When we discuss that, no one can say that it is hatred and we are trying to break the unity. It has to be openly discussed,” he said.

He stated that the President or the SLPP cannot take responsibility for their supporters comments and posts on Facebook. He expressed that the posts should be reported to Facebook and those violating Facebook’s community standard guidelines would be taken down. “Just because the Sinhala Buddhists voted for Mr. Rajapaksa, there is no space for extremist Sinhala Buddhist ideologies,” he stressed.

Due to social media users actively reporting hate speech posts, the number of such posts in social media have declined in the days following the results. Yet, there is much to be desired in prevention and minimization of the impact caused by hate rhetoric on social media.