UPFA govt's correct political vision has opposition in disarray - Mangala

Ports, Aviation, Information and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera, in a media communique yesterday remarked that all the brickbats and criticisms of reactionary forces have turned out to be a glaring testimony in favour of the correct political vision of the UPFA Government.

Minister Mangala Samaraweera's media communique stated: "Symptoms of a Presidential Election nightmare are evident in the recent activities of Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe who clings on to the party leadership after going down in world history as the single political leader who has lost a number of successive elections."

"All people-friendly political leaders get ready for an election only by conducting themselves in a way that would attract people towards them more closely. History has confirmed that Ranil Wickremesinghe's strategy is completely in contrast with this approach.

His sole electioneering strategy appears to be the highlighting of his own popularity through a media mafia engineered by his own relations, a set of sycophants and a handful of kingpins in dubious business enterprises who carry out hateful conspiracies against the Government."

"The poor participation of the general public at islandwide campaigns attended by him is no problem for him as long as the handful of biased media mafia is prepared to bloat his image as the most wise and brave hero among political leaders."

"Day dreaming of election victory through confidence in the media, while hood-winking the public is not a strange game for Ranil Wickremesinghe. That is a tradition he has inherited. Solutions for all his problems, whether private or political, lie through the path of the media, which is his main cause."

"Throughout the entire period of over 10 years of leadership in the UNP, the only clever thing he can boast before the public is his ability to control the media mafia which he built up by pushing into media organizations through the back door a handful of political stooges who were lured by cash, arrack and various other perks including foreign tours."

Some of these media favourites of Ranil Wickremesinghe are now appointed as UNP Organizers to a number of electorates at the expense of senior members of the party. This situation is a public secret today.

Apart from these stooge organizers, some of this low breed are occupying high places in media institutions masquerading as independent and unbiased journalists producing columns and programmes to attack the UPFA Government's policies.

The day they are going to be unmasked before the public eye is not far away. People have realized that the present day media giants who began life with eau de-cologne sale thrived only through the blessings of the UNP regime and that they are hating the UPFA Government because they have lost their chances of exploiting the people's assets anymore."

There is ample evidence that the Opposition Leader is presently engaged in an exercise of amassing the media mafia strength to portray a division among the constituent parties of the UPFA. This is a futile endeavour.

These antagonistic elements attempt to invent rifts between the SLFP leadership and the JVP leadership and between me and my party leadership which are only in the imagination of these antagonistic forces, but never in existence.

These attempts have now boomeranged on the very inventors who are today ashamed as cats defecated on rock-stone. The confidence prevailing among President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, Anura Bandaranaike, Lakshman Kadirgamar, Wimal Weerawansa and other members of the UPFA constituent parties including myself cannot be shattered by the pranks of media puppies under the control of Ranil Wickremesinghe or his business tycoons."

The recent open political dialogues between the main constituent parties of the UPFA was misrepresented to the public as conflicts by the media mafia of the UNP and they enjoyed a temporary solace. The people have by now well understood these open dialogues in their proper perspective. I wish to reiterate that this type of open dialogues are not conflicts among us, but our vital strength of unity among us.

The time has come for us now to sweep into the historic dustbin the deceitful political characters like Ranil Wickremesinghe who misdirected the masses by uttering palpable falsehood."