Presidential poll : Contest of experience:

Forty years vs forty days

Sanjaya Asela Maturata and Indika Polkotuwa

The people are aware about the person with 40 years political experience and a person with only 40 days political experience. I am aware the people have decided to give me majority in proportion to that experience at the forthcoming presidential election, President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in Kandy yesterday.

President Rajapaksa was addressing a gathering of SLFP activists who met him at President’s House, Kandy.

“At a recent public meeting in Kandy, the UNP and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had repeated seven times that my family should be struck by thunder. Was he asking thunder to strike my family because I gave one of my sons to the Armed Forces to defeat the LTTE?,” the President queried.

President Rajapaksa said he would request Wickremesinghe to stop vindictive politics. “Parliamentarian Kabir Hashim who was used by Wickremesinghe to sling mud at me, later apologized to me. In the forthcoming presidential poll, the responsibility of safeguarding democracy has fallen on the public. During the past 40 years we led Paada Yatra, Jana Ghosha and Human chain protests and agitations to protect democracy and human rights”, he said.

“Opposition parliamentarians and members of local government bodies joined those events without division though they were from different political parties. They were joining us because they wanted democracy preserved.

We have to remind you that a secret agreement to divide the country was signed and we abrogated that agreement and worked hard to save the country,” President Rajapaksa said. “During the past four years a large number of development programs were implemented by the Government including power, irrigation, infrastructure, ports and airports,” he said. “We did not stop development nor did we go lax on the war front,” the President said.

President Rajapaksa said there were prophets of doom who said there will be power cuts by 2009. But there are no power cuts today or tomorrow as we have planned ahead with a number of new power stations to meet the future demand of electricity.

The road network had been vastly improved and we would continue development at a rapid pace in the future too,” he said.