{"id":73316,"date":"2021-06-23T14:43:13","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T19:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=73316"},"modified":"2021-06-23T14:43:13","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T19:43:13","slug":"former-prime-minister-ranil-wickremesinghe-returns-to-sri-lanka-parliament-as-national-list-mp-and-slams-rajapaksa-governments-economic-policy-and-militarisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=73316","title":{"rendered":"Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe returns to Sri Lanka Parliament as National List MP and Slams Rajapaksa government\u2019s economic policy and \u2018militarisation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday returned to Parliament, ten months after his United National Party (UNP) suffered its biggest electoral defeat in history.<\/p>\n

In the first intervention by his party in the current legislature, Mr. Wickremesinghe slammed the Rajapaksa government on its economic policy that, he said, lacked a plan amid a crisis, and growing militarisation of civil services.<\/p>\n

Though the UNP did not get elected in a single constituency in the country in the August 2020 general elections, it could nominate one of its members to the 225-member House based on Sri Lanka\u2019s \u2018nationalist list\u2019 system, where in a party can secure a seat depending on its share of the cumulative votes polled.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy to be able to come to Parliament and resume my parliamentary political life,\u201d said Mr. Wickremesinghe, who was first elected as an MP in 1977. He was in all parliaments since, except after he lost the election last year, when the Rajapaksas rose to power, with a thumping majority.<\/p>\n

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB, or United People\u2019s Front), formed by those who broke away from the UNP, is Sri Lanka\u2019s main Opposition party, led by Sajith Premadasa.<\/p>\n

Pointing to Sri Lanka\u2019s foreign reserves, Mr. Wickremesinghe said the balance had fallen from $7 billion, when his government was in power [2015-2019], to $ 4 billion at present. \u201cBy the end of this month, Sri Lanka has a debt of US $1 billion to repay. We have to repay another loan of around US $ 2 billion this year. We have no plan on how to pay for these,\u201d he said, urging the government to sign up for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal.<\/p>\n

Mr. Wickremesinghe accused the government of giving tax relief \u201cto big people\u201d while \u201cstarving small people\u201d.<\/p>\n

Highlighting political authority, vested in the Cabinet and Parliament; civil power or the bureaucracy, and military power as the \u201cthree aspects\u201d of a democratic government, the former PM said: \u201cWhat is happening now is that civilian power is being handed to the military and the country is governed that way. That is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The military was roped in not only for pandemic response but also for economic activity, he added, as he sought a parliamentary debate to discuss the transfer of powers vested in Parliament to the Army.<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n

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

By Meera Srinivasan Former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday returned to Parliament, ten months after his United National Party (UNP) suffered its biggest electoral defeat in history. In the first intervention by his party in the current legislature, Mr. Wickremesinghe slammed the Rajapaksa government on its economic policy that, he said, …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe returns to Sri Lanka Parliament as National List MP and Slams Rajapaksa government\u2019s economic policy and \u2018militarisation’ »<\/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\/73316"}],"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=73316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73317,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73316\/revisions\/73317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}