{"id":53478,"date":"2017-06-06T19:32:16","date_gmt":"2017-06-06T23:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=53478"},"modified":"2017-06-07T01:49:38","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T05:49:38","slug":"mangala-samaraweera-dramatically-tran-sformed-after-he-kissed-ravi-karunanayake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=53478","title":{"rendered":"Mangala Samaraweera Got Dramatically Transformed After He Kissed Ravi Karunanayake"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka<\/strong><\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt\u2019s just a kiss away Kiss away, kiss away\u201d <\/em> – \u2018Gimme Shelter\u2019,<\/strong> The Rolling Stones <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera kisses his successor Ravi Karunanayake as the former assumed office as new Finance Minister in Colombo on May 25 following a cabinet reshuffle earlier in the week PHOTO BY \u2013 ISHARA S.KODIKARA – courtesy: The Island.lk<\/p><\/div>\n

As in the fairy tale, a dramatic transformation occurred when Minister Mangala Samaraweera planted a smooch, on his successor Ravi Karunanayaka\u2019s cheek. Except that the transformation occurred in the kisser, Mr. Samaraweera. <\/p>\n

A transformed Mr. Samaraweera seemed to see himself in the mirror as the President of Sri Lanka. In his first official event as Finance Minister at the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce late last month, he outlined sweeping changes which constituted a perspective for a drastic change of Sri Lanka. It was a macro change that no one has been mandated to implement and certainly has not been articulated by Sri Lanka\u2019s elected President.<\/p>\n

Samaraweera delivered the keynote speech at the inauguration of the \u201cSri Lanka Investment & Business Conclave 2017: Growth through Partnerships\u201d,<\/em> organized by the CCC. (\u2018Mangala Maps Way Forward\u2019, Daily FT)<\/strong><\/p>\n

While he has been removed from the Foreign Ministry for the second time (the first being by President Sirisena\u2019s predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa), Mangala thinks that what he has been appointed to do is to extend that which he did as Foreign Minister. As the Daily FT reported, he made his first speech as Finance Minister while \u201ckeeping a foot in his previous portfolio as Foreign Minister\u2026\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

The (patronizing) message issued from Ottawa on May 18 by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to mark the 8th anniversary of the end of Sri Lanka\u2019s war, revealed exactly what Mangala did as Foreign Minister: <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI reiterate my call to the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure that a process of accountability is established that will have the trust and confidence of the victims of this war. To this end, Sri Lanka should fulfill its international commitments by ensuring the involvement of Commonwealth and international investigators, prosecutors and judges.\u201d<\/em> (My emphasis-DJ)<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Now Mangala Samaraweera says that his work as Finance Minister will be on a continuum with his work as Foreign Minister and that both these are part of the same grand vision for Sri Lanka! <\/p>\n

Mangala\u2019s speech repeats his lamentation about Sri Lanka\u2019s performance over the last 69 years. <\/p>\n

Samaraweera indicates that the country\u2019s development since Independence has been a failure and that he as Finance Minister will force through the new paradigm of Ranil Wickremesinghe that will change all that by\u2014wait for it\u2014Feb 4, 2018, the 70th anniversary of Independence: <\/p>\n

\u201cSamaraweera recalled the potential Sri Lanka had at Independence but expressed hope that the country still has the chance to turn things around and use its 70th Independence to chart a new beginning. The economic policy plan presented by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last October was referred to as a blueprint the government would follow.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Mangala thinks his task as Finance Minister is to drive the Ranil-CBK project through in a policy coup d\u2019\u00e9tat<\/p>\n

Samaraweera announced, \u201c\u2026Sri Lanka\u2019s aspirations to become a regional hub for financial services for international trade\u201d and that \u201cthe growth model Sri Lanka evolves would need to be private sector driven with exports and FDI as key pillars\u201d.<\/em> <\/p>\n

Who decided that Sri Lanka would give priority to converting itself into \u201ca regional hub for financial services\u201d i.e. aspire to emulate Singapore than Malaysia and South Korea? <\/p>\n

And has the SLFP faction within the government agreed to this growth model that would be \u201cprivate sector-driven\u201d, rather than \u201cstate-driven\u201d or \u201cstate-private\u201d driven, as in the spectacularly successful East Asian model? <\/p>\n

Has the President, who has been elected with the legitimate power to determine the blueprint which the government would follow, relinquished those duties to the PM, as in India and the UK? JR Jayewardene campaigned on the platform of an open economy and an executive presidential system and obtained a sweeping mandate for his model. Ranil Wickremesinghe has no such mandate and President Sirisena did not run for office on the Ranil economic blueprint. <\/p>\n

Mangala thinks his task as Finance Minister is to drive the Ranil-CBK project through in a policy coup d\u2019\u00e9tat. On May 29, 2017 the BBC asked, \u201cIs Sri Lanka up for sale?\u201d<\/em> The Ranil-CBK-Mangala troika\u2019s answer to the BBC\u2019s question is \u201cHell, yes!\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

The Finance Minister further proclaimed that \u201cWithout reconciliation and a stable foundation economic progress would once again evade our nation. In fact this is why a new Constitution in important…\u201d<\/em>
\nHe elaborated in his remarks to the Mass Media Ministry which he has just assumed control of: \u201cThe Government has already started the process of giving executive powers to Parliament, said Samaraweera\u2026\u201d <\/em>(Daily FT, June 3rd 2017) <\/strong> <\/p>\n

The Samaraweera strategy is an unintended suicide bomb. A healthy business climate rests not on reckless policy reform but on sociopolitical stability, continuity and harmony. The attempt at a introducing a new Constitution will not only damage and destabilize a fragile coalition, but will also divert and divide the state apparatus itself (bureaucracy, judiciary, military)<\/em>. Above all it will necessitate a polarizing and convulsive Referendum — all of which will gravely harm the business climate which the Finance Minister is duty-bound to protect and foster. <\/p>\n

There is of course Ranil\u2019s Plan B<\/strong> — namely to bring the abolition of the executive Presidency before Parliament as a separate amendment which does not require a referendum, and secure the votes of Basil-GL\u2019s \u201cPohottuwa\u201d.<\/p>\n

It will be a double-cross, a trap: <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

(A<\/strong>) Gotabhaya will be eliminated from the running in 2019 by abolishing the executive presidency, while Mahinda, whose loyalist MPs will be used for the abolition, will be knocked out of \u2018the Premier stakes\u2019 in 2020 by briefly removing his civic rights by means of a war crimes or financial accountability trial.<\/p>\n

(B) <\/strong>The \u2018Pohottuwa\u2019 faction will be tapped by Ranil to secure the abolition of the Executive Presidency, while the \u2018official\u2019 SLFP will be leveraged by CBK to get the enhanced devolution package through Parliament. <\/p>\n

The proposed abolition rejects\/ignores the axiom of a former Finance Minister, JR Jayewardene, based on experience of the island\u2019s politics since the 1930s, that sustained high growth is impossible in our society within a Westminster model and requires an Executive outside\/above Parliament. Even an Executive Prime Minister would not suffice. <\/p>\n

As the powers of the Provincial Councils expand, and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe\u2019s MoU with India including ECTA opens the floodgates for the five Southern Indian states to enter our economy unimpeded, the abolition of the Executive Presidency and dissolution of the Presidency-economy nexus will devastate any prospects for stability and sustained growth and wreck any chance of an island-wide national development policy, a single island-wide division of labour and a single market. <\/p>\n

The geopolitical reality is that the parliamentary model in this small island (where the minority parties will wield a de factoveto) cannot control autonomous provinces with a huge ethnic \u2018kin-state\u2019 across 18 miles of water and a behemoth of a subcontinent as neighbour. What India successfully does to keep itself united with the PM\/parliamentary system and quasi-federalism, a little island dwarfed by its neighbour cannot do to keep itself together as a single sovereign state.<\/p>\n

If the Executive Presidency falls, the Northern and Eastern Provinces rise quasi-federally and Indian monopoly capitalism swallows the Sri Lankan market and enterprises, so ending the possible future of Sri Lanka as a strong, modern, developed, sovereign country with a sense of independent nationhood and a proud, dignified, distinct people. <\/p>\n


\nCourtesy:Daily Mirror<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka \u201cIt\u2019s just a kiss away Kiss away, kiss away\u201d – \u2018Gimme Shelter\u2019, The Rolling Stones As in the fairy tale, a dramatic transformation occurred when Minister Mangala Samaraweera planted a smooch, on his successor Ravi Karunanayaka\u2019s cheek. Except that the transformation occurred in the kisser, Mr. Samaraweera. A transformed Mr. Samaraweera seemed …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Mangala Samaraweera Got Dramatically Transformed After He Kissed Ravi Karunanayake’ »<\/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\/53478"}],"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=53478"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53492,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53478\/revisions\/53492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}