{"id":48965,"date":"2016-10-15T01:59:13","date_gmt":"2016-10-15T05:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48965"},"modified":"2016-10-15T02:02:18","modified_gmt":"2016-10-15T06:02:18","slug":"gotabhaya-rajapaksa-denies-existence-of-secret-pact-between-president-sirisena-and-rajapaksa-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48965","title":{"rendered":"Gotabhaya Rajapaksa Denies Existence of ” Secret Pact” Between President Sirisena and Rajapaksa Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dharisha Bastians <\/strong><\/p>\n

Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has hailed President Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s fiery speech on Wednesday that drew sharp criticism from civil society and opposition political parties and exposed a major rift in the ruling UNF-SLFP coalition. <\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC Sinhala Service from China, where he is currently attending a defence summit, the powerful former official in the Rajapaksa Government said he was \u201chappy the President had finally understood the truth\u201d state institutions probing corruption allegations.
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\nDenying that he had spoken with Sirisena before the President\u2019s outburst earlier this week, the former Defence Secretary vowed that there was no \u2018secret pact\u2019 between the current President and the former ruling family. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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In a widely publicized speech on Wednesday, President Sirisena railed against the three main anti-corruption bodies of the Government and criticised the Bribery Commission for \u2018hauling\u2019 former military officials including Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to court. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy that the truth has finally dawned on the President about these things,\u201d Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said referring to the corruption probes by these agencies, \u201cI believe that as he says, he will now take direct action, without being influenced by people with various political agendas.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said over two years they had been making it clear that corruption probes conducted by the anti-graft bodies were politically motivated. \u201cNow President Sirisena is giving the same explanation of these investigations,\u201d Rajapaksa asserted. Staunchly defending the President, the former Defence Secretary also criticised anti-graft agencies for filing cases against former armed forces commanders. <\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Sirisena himself said that military personnel were being held in custody for 16 months. Does it take 16 months to conduct an investigation? Is that justice? Why aren\u2019t the NGOs talking about that? Now everyone is opposing his speech. So are they saying he must do what they say? Doesn\u2019t the President have the right to express how he feels?\u201d Rajapaksa said in defence of Sirisena\u2019s outburst. <\/p>\n

The endorsement from the former Defence Secretary came amidst a storm of controversy over President Sirisena\u2019s remarks which were roundly criticised by the JVP and civil society movements that heavily backed his candidature in the January 2015 election. <\/p>\n

President Sirisena\u2019s speech before an audience primarily comprising military officials also exposed a major faultline within the ruling coalition, because it was perceived as being directed at his alliance partner, the UNP, and alluded to the party\u2019s alleged hold over the anti-corruption bodies. <\/p>\n

Courtesy:Daily FT<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Dharisha Bastians Former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has hailed President Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s fiery speech on Wednesday that drew sharp criticism from civil society and opposition political parties and exposed a major rift in the ruling UNF-SLFP coalition. Speaking to the BBC Sinhala Service from China, where he is currently attending a defence summit, the …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Gotabhaya Rajapaksa Denies Existence of ” Secret Pact” Between President Sirisena and Rajapaksa Family’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48966,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48965\/revisions\/48966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}