Current govt. has no legitimacy, says Kiriella

By Saman Indrajith

The incumbent government was a lottery win for Ranil Wickremesinghe and a breathing space for the Rajapaksas, Chief Opposition Whip Kandy District SJB MP Lakshman Kiriella said yesterday.

Addressing the media at the Opposition Leader’s Office in Colombo, Kiriella said that the makeshift government would not be able to solve the problems the people were faced with.

“This government is without any legitimacy. It has MPs who have been bought off. It does not represent people’s wishes. As long as this government is in existence, the international community will not consider extending any meaningful assistance to this country to get out of the present predicament. To have a legitimate government we need a fresh election and fresh mandate from the people.”

Kiriella said that the leaders of the makeshift government had sought assistance from the international community. “A few countries have provided some assistance, but there is nothing substantial. Take a look at the statements issued recently by the World Bank, the IMF, the UN and leading countries. They all insist on two conditions to give assistance. They demand the government should submit its economic plan to get out of this crisis. Economic reforms are needed because our expenditure is three times our earnings. The second condition is that we should go for political reforms. This government may keep asking but there would be no assistance until we fulfil these two conditions,” Kiriella said, adding that the incumbent government could deliver nothing to achieve those conditions.

“We foresaw this economic disaster one and half years back. We warned the government of this. Not only us, the economists and many experts warned the government of an inevitable crisis and advised them to go to the IMF. The government was so arrogant that it did not give two hoots about the warnings. There had been a finance minister who kept bunking parliament for months. He did not come to parliament even after we demanded. Today we have neither dollars nor rupees. The government keeps dreaming that they will receive dollars. One ministry issued a statement that the World Bank would give us 700 million dollars. Within 24 hours, the World Bank issued a clarification that there was no such thing and they have not even commenced talks to consider the assistance to this country.

“This government has lost its credibility. How one could expect the international community to trust this government when not even the Lankan expatriates trust them. Lankan expatriates do not send dollars here because they do not trust the government.

“The only solution before us is to go for an election. If a new government is in power people will wait for solutions. The international community prefers to work with a new government. A new government cannot be made by buying over MPs of a parliament that has lost its legitimacy because people say that parliament no longer represents them,” Kiriella said.

Badulla District SJB MP Chaminda Wijesiri also addressed the press.