President tells 59th SLFP Anniversary: Changes strengthen democracy
Daily News – By Rasika SOMARATHNA
President Mahinda Rajapaksa told the 59th anniversary meeting of the SLFP yesterday that accelerated development, a stable Government, strengthening democracy, peace and prosperity in line with people’s expectations were the aims of the envisaged constitutional amendments and not the extension of his term in office.
Addressing over 15,000, including party cadres from top to the grass-roots level at Temple Trees, the President said that if he chose to go for a third term first the party had to sanction his candidacy and next the people had to decide whether or not to retain him.
Emphasizing that there were mis-information in this regard the President said that deleting the clause which restricts the number of contesting opportunities would pave way for greater sovereignty and widen peoples scope of choice.
Addressing cheering party cadres President Rajapaksa noted that the SLFP with the help of other stakeholders had created the strongest Government in Asia today.
The two thirds majority which pundits claimed as a near impossibility under the present constitution is within the reach of the Government, he added.
The Government is of the view that certain clauses in the Constitution should be amended to pave way for accelerated development and greater stability and efficiency to fulfill people’s expectations and we are committed to do so, he observed. Commenting on the envisaged changes to the 17th Amendment, the President noted that what had been done was to re-enlist certain regulatory powers which the parliament lost in 1978.
According to the President the proposed council which replaces the CC would consist a member each from the Tamil and Muslim communities in addition to the Premier, Speaker and the Opposition leader .
He urged the party cadre to go to the grass-roots level and educate the masses on these new changes.
He stressed that since the victory over terrorism the emphasis today was on development and also urged party members to take the reigns of development in their respective villages.
He said that as SLFP’s in power all had a responsibility to ensure a prosperous and peaceful nation for the present as well as future generation.
On the occasion three resolutions on Economic prosperity, Development, Conquering the future through harmony and need for Constitutional amendments in national interest presented by Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva, Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka and Prime Minister D.M.Jayaratne respectively were adopted by the membership unanimously.
An electronic automated SLFP membership card too was introduced with the inaugural card being given to Prime Minister D.M.Jayaratne by the President. The President later handed over similar membership cards to other senior leaders.
Immediately after, the SLFP membership felicitated one of their senior most citizens, the veteran T.D.Pasquel of Matugama with the President presenting him a memento.
The cheerful atmosphere both within and outside the auditorium at the Temple Trees was further enhanced with the colourful cultural events presented by the ‘Youth’ dancing troupe of the National Youth Council.
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HE Mahinda Rajapksa deserves to be elected President not just a third term also but even a 4th and 5th term, if not a lifetime, for having totally vanquished the evil terrorist organisation LTTE and its barbarous dictator VP. MR had to overcome not just the LTTE but also the powerful alliance of Norway and the imperial West led by USA and Britain, who tried their utmost to save the LTTE in their dying days, to fight another day. This is because the LTTE served the imperial West purpose of creating strife within India to break it up into autonomous States, and so stop it dead in its track to become a superpower of SE Asia. The Yankees want to dominate the whole world, to become a hyperpower with its tremendous firepower of destruction. They are highway robbers of the world ordering, “Stand and deliver”. If we did not deliver we will be destroyed one way or another, as they are doing at the moment in Iraq and Afghanistan.
HE Mahinda Rajapksa was undaunted. He had a laugh dealing with the likes of David Milliband, Bernard Koutchner and Ban Ki-Moon, and sent them packing home with their tails between their legs. MR is our king today. Let no one try to grab his crown from him. He deserves to go on wearing it as long as he likes, since there is much work to be done.
MR is on right track of re-building our country as one nation with religious and racial harmony guided by the Sacred Thripitaka, after more than three decades of ravage and rape of Mother Lanka by the LTTE aided by imperial West and thousands of traitors within the country. As MR said the only division within the nation is patriots and traitors. The traitors will be dealt with in the years to come, high or low, when they will be made to swing. Let them repent and serve the nation if they want to live.
The job in hand immediately is to re-build the country surely and effectively, beginning with the infrastructure in all its aspects. MR started it from day 1 of becoming President in 2005, while conducting the War of Liberation at the same time from 2007. He liberated mother Lanka with all her children of Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese etc. We should all be grateful to MR for the heroic service he has rendered the country and strengthen his hands to do battle not only with the imperial West in trying to sabotage and subvert our country through devious means but also against the rising ‘paradesi kotiyas’. Our real enemies however are hunger, poverty, ignorance, disease, unemployment, homelessness etc. We need HE Mahinda Rajapksa and his brothers three and his son Namal to lead the battle to defeat all these evils and make Sri Lanka truly the ‘Star of Asia’, the ‘Miracle of Asia’. Let us one and all mobilise and line up behind them to do battle and win. We should all do our bit, big or small.
God bless Sri Lanka! May Sri Lanka be always protected by the Sacred Thripitaka.