Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

By C.P. Kuruppu:[COLOMBO, SinhalaNet 2007.12.26 07:45AM] The time has now come for the government to look beyond the budget and take steps without delay to arrest the sky-rocketing cost of living, which is now the last trump card of Ranil Wickremesinghe`s UNP and other anti-national elements.

Even a survey conducted by the so-called Centre for Policy Alternatives, which is unsympathetic to the nationalist cause, has revealed that the majority of people are behind the Rajapaksa administration on the war effort. So the controlling COL is vital to retain that support.

Immediate steps are needed to provide relief to low income groups and minimize corruption and wastage through stern measures. Although the general expectation is that the LTTE can be neutralized within the next two years, if effective steps are not taken during the same period to ease the economic difficulties of the people, the government`s popularity is bound to slump. At least temporary solutions are required to deal with the problem, which can lead to a volatile situation involving a spate of work stoppages and strikes in State sector.

This is exactly what the desperate Ranil Wickremesinghe wants. In England Winston Churchill`s Conservative Government was defeated only after he won the war against Hitler. But Ranil wants to see that Rajapaksa is defeated before he can win the war against the LTTE ? because he knows that a victory against the Tigers would throw him out of politics.

More than half of the MPs who have won the 2004 election under the elephant symbol now have joined the government. But Ranil seems to ignore its own plight in his attempt to topple the government by prodding its depleted strength which includes a few UPFA dissidents like Mangala Samaraweera and Sripathi Sooriyarachchi.

President Rajapaksa has however made it very clear the MPs are free to leave or join the government.

The JVP`s decision to refrain from voting at the third reading of the budget proposals though served national interests were really motivated by its own party requirements. But the JVP move also exposed the pathetic position of Ranil Wickremesinghe who imagined that he could depend on a party (the politics of which were poles apart from that of his own) to stage a comeback.

As for the JVP it is clear that they aim once again to piggy back to power on the SLFP. They did just that during the 2004 General Elections. As a party with 12 percent followers it could never have won 39 seats in parliament if it did not enter into an alliance with the United People`s Freedom Alliance.