Making it further clear that Athuraliye Rathana thera’s protest fast and subsequent actions are all part of a political drama staged by Sirisena, Presidential Media Division announced a short while ago that Governors M L A M Hizbullah and Azath Salley have resigned from their positions.
Athuraliye Rathana and Maithripala | File Photo
Although the handing in of resignations appears as if Rathana thera’s protest fast scored resulting in one of his demands to be realized, a closer look at the Constitution reveals this is part of a carefully thought out play staged by Sirisena to help him score brownie points among voters.
Constitutional provisions grant power to the President to appoint a Governor but does not authorize sacking one. If an ousting of the Governor is to happen, the President requires the backing of a ⅔ majority in the Provincial Council.
Term of Eastern Provincial Council ended on September 30, 2018 and term of Western Provincial Council ended on April 21, 2019, rendering it impossible for Sirisena to stage an ousting of the Governors.
Hence, before the growing unpopularity of the trio Bathiudeen, Hizbullah and Salley, it is clear that Rathana thera’s protest before the Kandy Temple of the Tooth is a cooked up political drama to help Sirisena achieve his political goals.
It should also be noted that both Hizbullah and Salley in recent weeks have publicly called for the Presidential pardon and release of BBS Galagoda Atte Gnanasara, who yesterday joined Rathana thera at the protest fast site and said, despite their ideological differences, he has united with Rathana thera in the face of the ‘Muslim issue’.
Meanwhile, these short sighted, power hungry moves of Sirisena might end up costing innocent civilians dearly, as anti-Muslim narratives appear to grow stronger. All shops in Kandy remain closed today in an expression of solidarity with Rathana thero’s protest and BBS Gnanasara is marching to Colombo with his goons, demanding the President and government immediately act on Rathana thera’s demands.
It was also reported that three individuals who were at the site of Rathana thero’s protest fast, who were unable to confirm their identity and were later revealed to be Muslims, were attacked by a mob while the military attempted to remove them from the location.
Amarasiri / June 3, 2019
Sirisena,
You are doing “good”. You got the Monk to fast for a couple of days, he did not die, got Monk Ganasara released and let loose, and got, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjit to visit the Monk, and got the two Muslim Provincial Governors, whom you appointed, released. Great Drama. Still 300 dead.
Do you still think that the Para-Modayas, mean IQ 79, will still elect you, for a fecund term as President?
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Tamil from the north / June 3, 2019
This circus has come to a halt? What a bloody joker. Isn’t this the norm in SL? One fool goes on a strike, does a bit of drama with a pack of biscuits under the pillow, 3 days later the clown President goes and begs him not to carry on. Then the circus clown ends his fake fast and business as usual in Lanka. 6 months later, another circus unfolds.
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Rajash / June 3, 2019
apparently few Muslim Ministers and CMs have resigned.
this is another dark day for Sri Lanka…
…….Buddhist Monks can decide on the composition of the Cabinet.
My3 have no backbone to sack the Muslim CMs allegedly behind the rise of Muslim extremism
instead he Pardon Gnanasra and create this Rathna drama to put pressure on the CMs
My3 achieve his objective but at a huge cost to the future functioning of democracy
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Old codger / June 3, 2019
Sri Lanka is on the slippery slope to hell. Are the Sinhala Buddhists so utterly stupid that they cannot see that they are being played for suckers by interested parties? Reading social media posts and comments , it seems that even young and supposedly educated Sinhala people believe all the propaganda being spread painting Muslims as an existential threat. What can be said about a country where ignorant robed fanatics can shut it down, even though they can’t get elected? A country where thugs in robes issue orders to elected but clueless ”leaders” ?
To those who are gloating at the scent of blood, I say, remember the Buddha’s words : EVERYTHING is impermanent
You will get what you deserve.
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Native Vedda / June 4, 2019
Old codger
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Athuraliye Rathana for president!!!!!!
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nimal fernando / June 4, 2019
OC,
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You are like the boy with the finger in the dike ……….. trying to hold it all back!
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Don’t you see how futile it is?
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Native has already moved to higher ground ………. and changed sides! :))
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Native Vedda / June 4, 2019
nimal fernando
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Where is your sense of humour?
Sarcasm ????
You seem to be replacing Patali Champika Ranawaka.
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Old codger / June 4, 2019
Nimal,
I think Native is being devious. We should all vote for Gandasara or Ratana . Two years of theocracy will remove any illusions the masses may have.
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nimal fernando / June 4, 2019
OC,
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There is an economic tsunami gathering momentum ……….. all the indications/signs have lined up. ……… the good ol’ theocracy will only have sand to feed the true belivers.
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Donald Trump’s economic credentials are going to be found out big time …….. it’ll be a good election for Ranil to lose …… to add to the 25 he has already lost.
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I just tease Native, he is a good soul always fighting the good fight for the disadvantaged; very unusual for a Lankan …….. but he needs to lighten up a bit …….. if not, he’ll end up in an early grave.
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JD / June 3, 2019
Not so executive President will past, until the death if needed, until Executive Prime minister Ranil wicramasimghe removes Rishad Bathiuddin who has a long list commercial crimes, contempt court cases. There is no other way, President can remove Bahiuddin.
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JD / June 3, 2019
Not so executive President will past, until the death if needed, until Executive Prime minister Ranil wicramasimghe removes Rishad Bathiuddin who has a long list of commercial crimes/FRAUDS, contempt court cases. There is no other way, President can remove Bahiuddin.
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JD / June 3, 2019
Not so executive President will past, until the death if needed, until Executive Prime minister Ranil wicramasimghe removes Rishad Bathiuddin who has a long list of commercial crimes/FRAUDS, contempt court cases. There is no other way, President can remove Bahiuddin.
Listen to the PSC hearings, it is certain, there was no proper intelligence data management and implementation mechainsm. Intelligence boss even did not know who the others kingpins in the process are. IGP was sitting by his side, but they did not talk anything about security. He was just writing reports and even had given to Sagala Rathnyaake and those reports were presidential commission reports.
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Tami land / June 3, 2019
This ugly man does not have any moral.. He won his presidential election with UNP votes.. He punched on Ranil, He mocked CKB. He cheated all who supported him. He cheated MR too. He is greedy for power. His dream will come to end in 6 month time. Who will vote for this village man..Who even can not talk a sentence in English public talk. What is wrong with people of Sri Lanka to elect such a useless leaders. what crime people have done
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Anan / June 3, 2019
Why President go out of Srilanka , why he didn’t? , some time he may loss his chair, thanks Ama thu ru !A, Ratna there, good work,
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Dilshan / June 3, 2019
Monks forced The abandment of B-C pact. These third rate terrorist Monks caused irreparable damage to the country three generations lost the paradise. Today with the support of Mahanayake of the gutters have created environment to ISIS to thrive. Blessed are we for more bombs which will be worse than those of LTTE.
Time is.not far LTTE to be revived and join hands with ISIS
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Amila / June 3, 2019
When joker becomes a leader of a main party other leaders plays havoc. Mahinda did play during his time as then opposition leader was not doin anything n was just waiting. He is now the pm and doing the same old foolish things while mental case is playing havoc. Army should come forward n take over the country from these mentl case and joker before they destroy the country once more.
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Mallaiyuran / June 3, 2019
The plan by the Trio, jointly and individually, for their selfish purposes well understood.
The biggest, biggest problem is this is the JR’s Kandy walk on Tamils’ Pact by Ratnam. That means, if that assessment turnout to be correct, Muslim’s 1958 is just around the corner. Welcome Muslim Brethren. We two Afghani donkeys can pull together Sinhala Chauvinist Politicians’ Chariot of political aspiration by having established our own devisons with in us. In a decade, Karuna, Deva, KP, Viyalendran, Saatchi will be going to UNHRC with Sinhala Supporting Actresses to UNHRC to support Thero de Silva’s resolution there.
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Mallaiyuran / June 3, 2019
to stop bold
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JD / June 3, 2019
It is the 15th amendment which did this disaster. ranil, Mahinda Rajapakse and SLFP must get together and must change it. Now, Sri lanka is simply a useless country. Singapore’s Shangrila forum also directly accuses China for it’s expansion in Asia. There is a Video which shows just after the human bomb blast, Hisbulla meeting some Saudi Arabians, probably a bag of money exchanging hands. American Military and political affairs Secretary is coming.
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Fred / June 3, 2019
From CEYLON to SRI LANKA it has been nothing but a disaster.
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Good Sense / June 3, 2019
My comment on the necessity of a 2/3rds majority as stated in this article is the quotation of the article 154B(2) of the Constitution, namely, “The Governor shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and shall hold office, in accordance with Article 4(b), during the pleasure of the President.”. As usual there is an element of pleasure as well as a possibility cum necessity of an address by the provincial council in a specified manner. I wonder what provision was used by President D. B. Wijetunge, when he removed Mr. S. Sharvananda as Governor of the Western Province. No address of the provincial council was availed then. This article highlight the support rendered by the Priest GG to AR on his fast. What about others, particularly some Catholics as well according to other reports? No doubt Maru Sira will do all kinds of tricks but we must accurately pin point that he did perform a trick in the last few months of his office. (In raw Sinhala “Suvase Adhinawa” meaning taking painful deep breaths during last stages of one’s life.)
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Lasantha Pethiyagoda / June 3, 2019
Political strategies and game-playing by the Sri Lankan leadership at the expense of communal violence and economic collapse should be exposed for what they are: a callous disregard for public will or the national interest.
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Gune / June 3, 2019
Let Sirisena enjoy the few more months of power we the people gave him in 2015. We will remove him forthwith at the next election and he will remain in a political wilderness for the problems he has caused and the deaths he he brought to this nation.
Billions of rupees of lost revenue to the country has been caused by one person since 26th October2018 due to his personal greed of power. he must be held accountable. He is a Desha Throhi!!! of the highest order.
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chiv / June 3, 2019
History repeats . In past the Buddhist extremist with the insinuation of monks got rid of Tamil representatives in parliament. They assaulted, took them to courts, threatened, murdered, called them terrorist, threatened to take away there civic rights and there by helped in making LTTE as sole representative of Tamils. Now with this stupidity they have got rid of all Muslim ministers and soon will be targeting other Muslim members currently in parliament.Further targeting of Muslims will only make them to depend more on ISIS and invariably accept them as their representative. It has happened before with Hamas in the Middle East .Where moderates like Arafat was systematically sidelined, only to see Hamas and other extremist filling up the void.
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Mallaiyuran / June 3, 2019
It is the Sinhalese demanded the resignation of Hezbollah. But it is the Tamils being punished again. Now another extreme anti-Tamil being proposed to East but a Ismail for West. He always have been to the hand of Old King.
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Lapatiya / June 3, 2019
From my heart I knew what should have been the outcome of this drama. Script of this drama written by Suththara Puncha. Directed by Suththara Puncha and produced also by no other than suththara puncha. Main characters are Azad saly, Hisbollah, Athana Methana Rathana, Gandassara. all male characters. Publicity “Kudu Hiru” and “Ada Da Rena” Supportive characters are Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and Vialendran. This drama staged only for pure Sinhala Buddhists. Producer, Suththara Puncha was expected this drama will break all the previous records but failed again miserably. Suththara Puncha will never ever succeed in anything.
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D.P. / June 3, 2019
I’m glad to see Many others beginning to see things in the same way I did. But, by the time I touched the key board to key in this comment, the situation has changed somewhat. Fast unto death ended resulting in more resignations of Muslim politicians than the Shylocks demanded. However, will this be accepted by the Shylocks as a full victory is yet to be seen. That is b’cos SL history shows that tensions after these kinds of major conflicts (two JVP riots & LITTE civil war) subsided with one side emerging as a clear victor while other as the loser. However, I’m not so sure about this existence of traditional dichotomy b’cos Shylocks cannot call the resolution a victory since the other side never declared a “war” against them. Yes, it is true that there was a terrorist attack on 4/21 & it was orchestrated by a small group of young Muslims but, not only the Muslim community as a whole never approved it but also it was the Muslim community that helped Forces to catch the remaining terrorists & their cache’ of arms. As a matter of fact, Muslim community itself is the biggest victims of the terror attack. Therefore, I don’t see any logic for them to accept a surrender to Shylocks.
In any case, Muslim leadership took a wise decision by throwing in the towel, even though they didn’t have to. Without such a submission, the danger existed that shylocks would try to escalate the self declared one-sided war even further. In conflicts of any nature, there cannot be heroes without creating cardboard enemies; the bigger the cardboard enemy the bigger the heroism becomes. In this case, Shylocks were able to arouse racial hatred among S/B & thereby were able to portray Muslims as a huge enemy against S/B at least mentally.
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gerad jabin / June 3, 2019
Gamarala Booru Sirisenas drams will end soon.
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Lima / June 3, 2019
VERY SOON SIRISENA AND THE RAJAPAKSES AND THE GNANASARAS AND RATHEN WILL PAY A HEAVY PRICE . THEY TOOK THE MASSES FOR A RIDE FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT OF AGENDA . POOR MASSES LEFT IN THE LURCH . WAIT AND SEE . WHEN THE PUNISHMENT COMES , NO WHERE TO GO . MIGHT BE WORSE THAN THE EASTER SUNDAY DAMAGE . BECAUSE THE FBI AND RAW IN COUNTRY , THEY WILL JOINTLY PLAN THE DAMAGE. WAIT AND SEE.
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Lapatiya / June 3, 2019
If another 2.50 Patriot like Rathana or Gandasaara starts another hunger strike tomorrow demanding Govt. should dissolve or Ranil should be ousted or Sajith should be the Prime Minister or Suththra Puncha should be the next President without an election will the Govt. allow their demands? What kind of Country we are living in? Then it is better to appoint Gandasaara to rule the Country while Rathana appoint as PM and Cardinal Malcolm as Chief Adviser to Gandasaara and Rathana. Iththakande Saddatissa, Bengamuwe Nalaka, Narahenpita Nurse Saadu, Magalkande Sudantha, Akmeemana Dayaratna and other saffron robed thug Monks should appoint as Cabinet of Ministers.
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sss / June 3, 2019
Is this article anonymous? Who is the author?
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Analyst / June 4, 2019
Dogs eats Dogs
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Analyst / June 4, 2019
History has repeated. Plea Bargain : condition 1: Resign and receive Pardon from all criminality. End of story. The Religion where dogs eats dogs in APEH Aanduwe has won., and the Thero can get back to the bosom buddies . Win win situation for all.
Such a shameless country which have no respect for Law and Order, no respect for the people and most of all no respect to the country.
This is a country where dogs eats dogs
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K A Sumanasekera / June 4, 2019
Has UNP Ven Rathne given his boss Dr Ranil a Free Kick?
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Venerable Rathne quit the Fast ,
Now the so called good Muslims and bad Muslims in the Yahapalana Government are one solid Block, although they demoted themselves to the back bench.
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Dr Ranil who looked drained and aged after Ibrahims bombed the Catholic Community , is now in an unassailable position going forward to face both Elections.
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Dr Ranil now has the whole Muslim Community, the TNA and the UNP Sinhala Buddhists in one solid group.
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With the Catholic Faction lead by the UNP stalwarts like Johnny from the Bible Belt , Harin Fernando, and the rest. in the Government , Dr Ranil will clean sweep both Elections…
No wonder Managala Samare sent that Tweet calling our Cardinal an Extremist, who is trying to stir the racist Communal Pot by aligning with Buddhist Monks.
Mangale has even Tagged the Pope in his Tweet……
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Native Vedda / June 4, 2019
KASmaalam K A Sumanasekera
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“Venerable Rathne quit the Fast ,”
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Please remind me whether public racist Rathne quit his fast by consuming lemon puff and fruit juice.
Fasting is good, especially during the Ramadan season. Has Rathne converted to Islam since the Easter Bombing?
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Mallaiyuran / June 4, 2019
Sampanthar has given a warning that Muslim community quitting from Muslim-Sinhala Government for Ratnam’s demand to resign Azath, Hezbollah and Rishard is a dangerous precedent as any Thero can demand for same result for any one’s impunity or punishment. Mano Ganesan too prettily mirrored this call. Other than few dumb Tamil politicians, no single Tamil is believing if the Muslim Community didn’t quit Appe Aanduwa, Sinhala Politicians would have seated Sampanthar on Chariot and pulled it on the Colombo streets as they did for Ramanathan, or would have did Holy Ablution and prayed Sampanthar as a god. Amirthalingam, who was much more agile and influential than Sampanthar, was pushed down to the ground, beaten by Army and rowdies, and impeached by JR, while all Muslim Ministers were celebrating it with Kiribath and Crackers. Hakeem who insisted that Tamils asking an inquiry on the 150,000 death will only split Sinhalese from minorities, have now unified all Muslim community have withdrawn from the Muslim Sinhala Government. For the first time, Appe Muslim Sinhala Aanduwa, has at least for theatrical talks, has become Sinhala Buddhist Aanduwa.
I do not see any differences between Ratnam, who demanded three corrupted official to leave government for an action of the entire Muslim – Sinhala government jointly attacking the Christian Churches and foreign tourist hotels, and the action of Hakeem, who unifying Muslim community, saying “if Crooks in our community is punished we all will shut down the government” and paralyzing the government. Allowing Muslim crook politicians paralyzing the government like this is bad example as already one man, Hezbollah has been blocking the Solution to Tamils threatening “Blood river will flow in North East, if North East Merged”.
If Sinhalese wants the country follow political process, not blackmailing, they should insist to their leaders when they give minister positions to Muslim Crook politicians they should put a condition to stay out on Muslim Minister’s labor union actions or have to pay a penalty.
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Christopher Seneviratne / June 4, 2019
Both are rogues.
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