MR campaigning to form strong and stable Govt.
Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has reached an important milestone – half a century in parliament – where he met with both successes and failures.
Easily one of the more popular politicians in Sri Lanka, he was twice President. With his current term, he is also Prime Minister for the second time.
“I took to politics in the 1960s and entered Parliament in 1970. Sam Wijesinha, the then Secretary General of Parliament and my uncle and kinsman from Giruwapattuwa convinced me to pursue a legal career,” Premier Rajapaksa told the Sunday Times in an interview. Encouraging me in no small measure was one of the country’s then foremost lawyers, Dr Colvin R. de Silva. He was then a minister in our government.
“My peers told me that being a lawyer was a useful tool for a parliamentarian. Looking back, I realise that was valuable advice. I made many friends who were to later become politicians,” He said he was an MP in a government that had won two thirds majority in Parliament. Ragging at that time, he noted, was not what it has become today. “I was asked to make a speech” and “what I learnt there held me in good stead,” he added.
Here are edited excerpts of the interview:
MOST SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENTS AND FAILURES IN HIS POLITICAL CAREER: I think my most significant achievement was in providing the political leadership to win the war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). My predecessors were afraid to make bold decisions and act on them. They tended to buckle under foreign pressure.
I take pride in the fact that I was able to assert the political will to resolve an intractable problem that had affected this country for over three decades. I also count as my most significant achievements the building of several important infrastructure projects such as the Norochcholai power plant, the Upper-Kotmale project, the Southern highway, the Hambantota harbour etc which had been on the drawing boards for decades, but no government was able to implement. Many people do not seem to realise that the per capita income of Sri Lanka in US collar terms increased threefold during my nine years as President.
The biggest disappointment that I had to face during my political career was the defeat of January 2015. I was betrayed by people I trusted, and thought were my friends. That was a defeat engineered through conspiracies and subterfuge. The entire campaign against me was based on lies. I acknowledge that that defeat came about due to our own weaknesses and shortcomings in certain areas. That defeat has hurt not only me and my followers, but the whole of Sri Lanka.
ON BEING A POPULAR POLITICIAN IN SRI LANKA: I like working with people. The people know that, and they respond accordingly. I also have a policy of delivering what I have pledged to the people.
I think my popularity among the people is based on these two factors. Even after the defeat of January 2015, the people did not want me to retire from politics. Politics is not just about working with people. One has to choose a good team of administrators, entrust them with responsibilities and get things going. My advice to all young aspirants to political office, will be that success in politics does not come easily. It is full time work. It is also pretty hard work.
ON LEADING THE AUGUST 5 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION CAMPAIGN:
We are looking forward to forming a strong SLPP government. We also need to provide the best legislative support to the President to take forward the proposals contained in his presidential election manifesto
“Vistas of Prosperity” which has received an overwhelming mandate. Everyone who has any understanding of economics knows that what President Gotabaya inherited from the Yahapalana government in November last year was an economy that was in shambles.
We had to provide life support to many struggling businesses by reducing taxes. If a business house was worth one billion USD in 2014, its value had gone down by about 40% by 2019. You would have seen a leading business magnate on TV openly describing the yahapalana government as a plague (wasangathaya). So our top priority right now is to put the economy right.
ON THE DEVASTATION CAUSED BY THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC: We were in a tough position even before the Covid-19 outbreak due to five years of Yahapalana misrule and the economic fallout resulting from the Easter Sunday bombings.
Now the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation beyond measure. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Donald Trump of the USA have both gone on record saying that their countries were in a better position to deal with the economic fallout resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic because their economies were doing well when the pandemic hit their countries. The same can be said by our neighbours India and Bangladesh as well.
Sri Lanka’s position, however, was quite different, and the reason why this country is still functioning is because we have the best possible team in charge from the President downwards. A resounding victory at the parliamentary elections will help in the economic recovery efforts by helping build stability and confidence.
ON CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM AND NONFUNCTIONING PROVINCIAL COUNCILS: We will need a two thirds majority in Parliament even to revive the provincial councils system. The Yahapalana government made a complete mess of the local government and provincial councils elections systems.
The Constitution will also have to be amended. Today, there does not seem to be anything wrong with the Constitution because Gotabaya is the President and I am the Prime Minister. If any political party other than the SLPP had been in power, the President and the Prime Minister would be at war with one another from day one. Constitutional reform is a must and we need a two-thirds majority for that.
ON GOVERNANCE AFTER A POLLS VICTORY: This is a country that has been affected by three major calamities one after another. First came the five- year Yahapalana calamity, then the Easter Sunday calamity, and now the Covid- 19 calamity. What this country needs above everything else at this moment is a stable government. The Cabinet will be as large or as small as is necessary to form a strong and stable government to take the country forward.