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Featured Article: President RajapakseÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s one year in office

Thursday, 23 November 2006

Sri Lankan president Rajapakse has completed one year in office. His 61st birthday has also coincided with this. In 2005, Rajapakse contested the Presidential polls with the alliance of the anti-peace forces and Sinhala hard-liners such as JVP and JHU.

The slogans that were made in his favour at this election were opposition to Norway’s role as facilitator, review of the CFA and preventing an internationalization of the ethnic crisis. Now one year has rolled by and what has happened to these demands.

Having won the polls and having become President, Rajapajse has to accept the role of Norway as peace facilitator. He hasn’t succeeded to prevent the ethnic crisis being internationalized. He promised to review the CFA but it still remains in its original form on paper. He is unable to prevent a war situation in the country.

Having sidelined the forces with whom he rode to power, he has formed a new alliance with Ranil Wicremasinghe, the opposition leader. He has signed an MOU with him. He is in the sorry plight of being unable to hold on to the policies that he advocated during the election campaign.

The biggest question is whether President Rajapakse has the political strength and commitment to salvage the country from the sorry plight that it is plunged in.

An English translation of the Editorial in Thinakkural, a Tamil daily, based in Colombo

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A Well Wisher said:

A man completely with NO vision or ideas and above all one who does not even understands how laws operate and how systems work. A completely lost person.

Whether he has political strength or not is not certain; what is certain is he is a man with a gangster type make-up and is bound to be a total failure in anything he undertakes.

2006-11-23 15:28:33

Jay Jay said:

He came to power to renege on the CFA, and crush the Tamils. During the last year under his presidency hundreds of Tamils have been killed. Hospitals and schools that have been built with international funding detroyed, got 150 billion rupees worth of defense procument with foreign funding, and has made Sri Lanka the highest spender on defense in South Asia. He has also got the co-chairs to issue incongruent messages that are so confusing he cannot be questioned about whatever he does. By signing the MOU with the largest opposition party UNP, he has also got 80% support of the Sinhalese population, for the bombing of schools, churches, hospitals, abductions of children, abductions and extortions and killing of innocent civilians. He has actually achieved more than any other president in the history of that country.

2006-11-23 21:41:19