{"id":160716,"date":"2016-04-13T18:50:22","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T13:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=160716"},"modified":"2016-04-18T03:16:43","modified_gmt":"2016-04-17T21:46:43","slug":"president-sirisena-bullish-in-new-year-greeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/president-sirisena-bullish-in-new-year-greeting\/","title":{"rendered":"President Sirisena ‘Bullish’ In New Year Greeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Maithripala Sirisena<\/span><\/a>‘s official greeting for Sri Lanka’s traditional New Year has the country’s leader positioned in the art work in a way that he appears to be sporting a pair of blue horns.<\/p>\n

It is not possible to determine whether this was a deliberate attempt by the Presidential Media Unit to depict Sirisena in less than complimentary light or if it was a case of poor creative execution.<\/p>\n

However, the image that has been posted in the President’s official Facebook Page<\/span><\/a> could very well be a Freudian slip considering numerous examples of Sirisena’s bullish behavior after assuming office, quite in contradiction of his pledges to establish good governance<\/span><\/a>, root out nepotism<\/span><\/a> and cure the country of the many ills that were brought about by his predecessor.\"Maithripala<\/a><\/p>\n

Sirisena’s track record during the first 15 months in office includes appointing his brother<\/span><\/a> to a key state-owned enterprise as its Chairman (within a week of assuming office), coming up with bizarre definitions for nepotism in the face of criticism over allowing his children (Daham<\/span><\/a> and Chathurika<\/span><\/a>) to arrogate upon themselves their father’s powers, facilitating ‘back-door entr<\/span><\/a>y’ to Parliament for individuals rejected at the polls and extravagant self-promotion. Throughout this time, his critics maintain, Sirisena has displayed a devil may care attitude, bullish to the core.<\/p>\n

Experts are at a loss to determine which kind of creature has these types of horns, but they closely resemble the horns of Scottish highland cattle<\/a><\/span>, albeit not as majestic and also being more droopy at the end.<\/p>\n

Creative hilarity aside, the greeting itself is sober and deserves applause:\u00a0“I call upon every Sri Lankan to celebrate this year’s New Year in a way to actively contribute to building a country free of intoxicants adhering to the national programme initiated by us.” – Maithri<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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