PM says present government capable of overcoming challenges

COLOMBO (News 1st): Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Thursday (June 18), said the successful manner the spread of COVID-19 was brought under control proves that like the government led by him between 2006 and 2014, the present government led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is also capable of prevailing over apparently insurmountable odds. "This achievement was made possible by the correct political leadership provided by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa," read a statement issued by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. Commenting on conspiracies from various parties against the government, the Premier said, "within days of the President taking office, there was the well-publicized drama alleging that an employee of a Western embassy had been abducted, harassed and questioned." The Prime Minister said the President adroitly defeated all these conspiracies. Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa further said all demonstrators marching to surround the Presidential secretariat were allowed to get to their destination unhindered, thus giving the lie to the propaganda that a rigid, authoritarian rule had commenced under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa who is a former military officer. Prime Minister Rajapaksa went onto note that as soon as the resumption of civilian life towards normalcy began following, COVID-19 a minor political party that attempted to stage protest over an incident that had taken place in the USA which has no relevance to Sri Lanka, in defiance of a court order, was taken into custody by Sri Lanka Police and produced in court. In the statement, PM Rajapaksa mentioned of an incident in 2014, involving an actress who got caught red-handed directing a video where she pretends to have been injured and hospitalized after an alleged assault in 2014, and another long-haired individual who said that it would have been better if he had been thrown into a drain soon after birth to save him the pain of living in a country ruled by the Rajapaksas, adding such individuals are once again seen in public after a lapse of five years. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa said as a government, they are not happy with the manner in which demonstrations were dealt with, adding the present government publicly condemned this on several occasions. He pointed out those involved in demonstrations were professional agitators who know how to provoke the police. Commenting on the funeral rites of Late Minister Arumugam Thondaman, the Premier said, Minister Arumugam Thondaman was the leader of the Up-country Tamil community and after curfew was imposed in the Nuwara Eliya district to prevent large numbers of grief-stricken people from attending the funeral of their leader, the people of that area cooperated. Thereby, the Prime Minister said this incident was completely different to that of holding a protest in Colombo over a matter in the USA that does not concern Sri Lanka. In his statement, the Prime Minister reminded that demonstrators used to turn up almost daily in front of the presidential secretariat just as they did during the Yahapalana government. Most of those demonstrators wanted the employment they had obtained from the Yahapalana government made permanent, adding those demonstrators had come, not to find fault with the present government, but to curse the previous government. According to the statement, those youthful demonstrators were caught on camera telling the Yahapalana minister who had given them dud appointments not to come back to Hambantota. The Premier notes, "We now see that the Yahapalana minister concerned has in fact abandoned Hambantota and is now contesting from Colombo."