Letter by President Maithripala Sirisena

to Mahinda Rajapaksa

Official translation, sent to us by the Presidential Secretariat, of the letter by President

Maithripala Sirisena to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, penned on 13 August 2015. For
Rajpaksas response to this letter (in Sinhala) see here. Image courtesy Indi.ca.

by Groundviews

- on 08/17/2015

Dear Mr. Mahinda Rajapasksa,

I am writing to you today, in my capacity as the chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SLFP), the leading single political party in the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which
having victoriously produced four Executive Presidents and won four Parliamentary elections
over the past two decades, was defeated in the Presidential election on last January 08 under
your leadership.
Both of us entered national politics from this great party. The SLFP and the voters who kept
their faith in it made you the Executive President of this country twice. However, I have
become the President in a different manner. That is, by challenging you as the candidate of
the common opposition, and by giving leadership to and organizing the growing discontent
with your administration. Thereby, I have been able to retain the Executive Presidency within
the party as it was slipping away from you and the party. The secret to my success of winning

the trust of all opposition parties and groups that stood against you was the inseparable,
untainted and genuine relationship between me and the SLFP.
Losing an election is an unpleasant experience. Yet, after your defeat on last January 08, no
SLFP activist was targeted as it happened in 1977 and in 2001. In fact, it was another SLFPer,
who was a party member for 48 years and its general secretary for 13 years, who replaced
you as the President. As the President, I took every measure to prevent post-election violence
and protect the SLFP activists. I propose you to consider the aftermath of the election and
potential intimidation against you and the members of the SLFP, if it was a candidate other
than me, who challenged and defeated you. Therefore, I must emphasize that I have provided
political protection to all SLFP parliamentarians, Provincial Council members, Local
Government representatives and all SLFP activists. Further, you must also assess the
consequences the SLFP peoples representatives and the party activists at the grass-roots
level would have had to face, if I were to dissolve the parliament immediately after I assumed
duties as the Executive President on last January 08.
I dont think you can ever forget how I stood for you in the party when you had to face many
critical moments until you became the President in 2005. I am sure you have not forgotten
the efforts I took to make you the Prime Minister in 2004. When Mr. Wimal Weerawansa had
organized a disruptive movement with whatever force the whole JVP had to prevent you from
becoming the Prime Minister, I strengthened you. When nominating our Partys candidate for
the 2005 Presidential election became a controversial issue, I firmly took your side. While I
took it as my responsibility as the general secretary of SLFP to make you the Presidential
candidate of our party, some of those who are surrounding you today were in secret
negotiations with Mr. Ranil Wicramasinghe as to what Ministerial portfolios they could obtain
after the election victory of his United National Party (UNP).
You are well aware that Mr. Basil Rajapaksas improper deeds and behaviour contributed to
the deterioration of the strong comradeship that grew between us as two senior members in
the SLFP. The anti-Maithripala Sirisena policy he followed with the intention of sidelining me
from politics and proving me as a failed politician boomeranged on all of you. When Mr. Basil
Rajapaksa was continuously disturbing my political affairs, I expected you to have the
humility to intervene to restore my independence. However, you failed to show such humility
until I became the candidate of the common opposition on November 21st, last year.
In the three brief meetings between us during the last seven months as well as in the
telephone conversation between us two days prior to you signed the nomination as an

election candidate from the Kurunegala district, I urged you not to contest this election as I
was ready to lead our party to victory. However, with your decision to contest this election,
my hopes to lead the campaign and win the election as the newly elected president as well as
the chairman of the SLFP evaporated. Had you not contested this election, I could attract
those who backed my victory in January, including Tamil and Muslim political parties, civil
society organizations, urban middle class, professionals and youth once again to support the
SLFP in this election.
Although I proposed you not to contest this election, I had no wish of keeping you completely
out of politics. Instead, I proposed a constitutional provision that would assure you a
respectable political existence. I am aware that many of your family members too agreed to
it. You refused it all, because you had become a victim of a few small political parties and
groups, who have no love or compassion for the SLFP, but linked to it through the UPFA. Those
small groups want nothing but to exploit the vote-generating ability they saw in you to make
sure they get a seat in the parliament. You have to take the responsibility of allowing such
small groups and parties with narrow intentions to take control of this great party, the SLFP,
that has a 64 year long history and has ruled the country for the longest period of time, i.e. 35
years, since independence. In this context, it is worrying to note that, confronted by these
opportunistic political minority, many senior members of our party appear powerless at the
district level preferential vote race. It is now time to put an end to the grip you have given
these small parties and groups, who have political existence if not for the votes of the SLFP
supporters, to decide the destiny of the party.
The great founder of the SLFP, Mr. S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike was prudent to appoint well
respected citizens such as Bernard Aluvihare, Badi-Uddin Mohammed, and Thangarja, etc. to
official positions in the party, fully representing the ethnic, religious and social diversity of Sri
Lanka. Although, in 1956, the SLFP was perceived as a political party with a religious and a
communal bias, under the leadership of Mrs. Bandaranaike and Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga,
it again grew as a progressive political party that accommodates the ethnic, religious and
social diversity of Sri Lanka and upholds social democracy. However, during your tenure of
nine years as the leader of this party, it has has become a political party that refuses to
accommodate diversity. Behind your defeat on January 08, did you fail to notice the very
flames of communalism you ignited were, in fact, working against you? That is, SLFP had fast
become a party that represented the Sinhala-Buddhist vote base in the country. Such
extremism is unfitting for a great political party like the SLFP. Today, I am faced with the
challenge of freeing the SLFP from such narrow ideologies and transforming it into a political
party that represents the whole Sri Lankan nation. Yet, those who flock around you try to

incite communalism in order to fatten their lot of preferential votes. In fact, they are not SLFP
members. They should not be allowed to manipulate the party.
During your tenure as the President, you repeatedly said that there was no more a majority or
a minority community in this country, but one nation. Yet, from the beginning of the last
presidential election to the day you gave an interview to a national newspaper on August
12th, 2015, you and those who speak on your behalf make statements that incite feelings of
communal hatred. According to Buddhism, in which I believe, as well as by all other major
religions, spread of communalism cannot be justified. Communalism has not been accepted
by any other humanistic philosophy either. Further, as this is a moment I have been able to
win the trust of Tamil and Muslim communities, if I were to lead the party in the coming
parliamentary election, Sinhala, Tamil, Muslim and other communities would have placed
confidence in our party in an unprecedented manner. At a moment when our task should be
to build the Sri Lankan nation, integrated and reconciled, to overcome the challenges of the
21st century, it is a crime against the country and also the party to incite communal hatred
for narrow political gains.
When the issue regarding the nomination came up, the main challenge which I had to face
was keeping this party from breaking up into factions. Sri Lanka has a two-party political
system and I assume that you are aware of the negative consequences on the country, when
one party breaks up and becomes weak. In order to keep the integrity of the party, I had to
take a step back and wait, as you and your team were always ready to split the party and
contest separately over any small issue. During the nomination process for the Gampaha
district, it became impractical to allow three members of the Ranathunga family to contest
from the same list. As such, I expected that Ranathunga brother who was already the Western
province Chief Minister would withdraw his nomination. However, it was unfortunate that you
decided to break-up the party and contest separately, had not been given nomination. Over
this issue, I watched silently and let you win, as one Ranathunga family member left the party
and joined the United National Party. It is due to my tactical decision to withdraw that the
SLFP could be prevented from splitting up over an unfortunate incident around the election
candidacy nomination for just one person.
The proposal to form a national government was not solely a proposal of one person. When
the National Government proposal was tabled, the Central Committee of the SLFP and the
parliamentary team of SLFP backed it and expressed their fullest support to it. But now,
certain groups who claim themselves to be your allies are attacking those members of
parliament who took up Ministerial posts in the aforementioned National Government. This is

nothing but another shameless clash over preferential votes. It is my duty to tell you the true
story. Those who are have flocked around you and praise you, while capitalizing on the final
bits of electoral value you have, try to secretly talk to me over the telephone, meet with me,
and send messengers, expressing their wish to join hands with me after the election and beg
for a ministerial portfolio so that they could sustain their political career. These are the same
opportunists, while pretending to be loyal to you, are campaigning to demean the other
candidates of our party who took up ministerial portfolios in the National Government
portraying the latter as enemies of the people. Despite all this, I observe with equanimity,
how the same candidates who try to underscore a so-called division in the party, shamelessly
use my image in the UPFAs promotional campaign. If this preferential-vote-hunting mafia that
bids you and your image a cheap price-tag continues, it could very well be the cause of
defeat for UPFA at this general election.
Recently, the media quoted that you are looking forward work together with me in the future.
If you have such a wish, I have to make one point clear. Your arbitrary decision to adopt the
18th amendment to the constitution led to a brutal suppression of democratic rights and
freedom of the people. It not only destroyed the social democratic ethos of the party but
caused serious injustice to many senior members of our party. With the intention of remaining
the President for ever, it is appalling how you curbed the freedom and destroyed the dignity
of the people, while depriving the SLFP and many dedicated SLFP seniors of their political
future. If you too had retired gracefully at the end of your two terms, like all former presidents
did, one of our senior SLFP leaders could have had the opportunity to become President and
for another, to become the Prime Minister. It looks now that even after this General Election,
you will continue to deprive them of their rightful opportunity. Dont you think they deserve a
chance at least now? In the upcoming election, if UPFA manages to win 113 seats, which is
the required-minimum to form a government, I believe that a senior leader of SLFP, who has
not yet had an opportunity, should be made prime minister. If by any chance, UPFA does not
achieve 113 seats but ends up getting close to the mark, I may be able to intervene as the
Executive President to gain the support of other parties to form a government. In that case
also, it is not you who should become prime minister but another senior member of our party.
The true strength of our party is that it is the only political party in the country that can boast
of many leaders who are experienced, politically mature and farsighted enough to become
prime minister. I request from you, in the name of our country, our people and our party, to
show before the nation, your flexibility, cooperation, and blessings in nominating one of the
senior leaders such as Nimal Siripala de Silva, John Seneviratne, Chamal Rajapaksa, Athauda
Seneviratne, A.H.M. Fowzie, Susil Premjayanth or Anura Priyadarshana Yapa as the Prime
Minister in a new government.

Since your defeat in last January, it was quite ridiculous how you went from one temple to
another countless times all over the country and tried catch the attention of media. Since I
know your beliefs, wishes and behaviour from 26th of January 2010 to 21st November 2014
quite well, I doubt if those countless temple visits over the last six months or so could help
you develop some spiritual thoughts. The reports that, during your personal encounters with
members of our party, you only display hatred, abhorrence, animosity and an overbrimming
egoism attest the same.
Against this backdrop, I request from you, for sake of the well-being of the country and the
citizens, to listen to your brain and not your heart, not to make statements that provoke
racism and not to allow promote divisions within the party, so that UPFA will have a chance to
win more seats in the parliament.
Sincerely,
Signed: Maitripala Sirisena
Chairman
Sri Lanka Freedom Party
Posted by Thavam