Joint Opposition frontliner Vasudeva Nanayakkara who publicly opposes Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s presidential ambitions, took an introspective tone in an interview over the weekend, criticising the JO for attempting to use Mahinda Rajapaksa as a ‘showpiece’ instead of having real conversations about policy and their plans to govern the country.
In a candid interview with a Sinhala language weekly, Nanayakkara said the JO’s entire focus was on finding a personality to represent the pro-Rajapaksa faction who could become a magnet for popular support.
“I am asking the question within the JO: What are we doing? For what reasons are we demanding to take over the Government? How will we govern and towards which goal? And what sort of candidate will we field towards this end? Without a real programme for Government, we can’t simply use Mahinda as a showpiece and take over the Government. Unless we present our policies coherently, the people will not place their faith in us,” Nanayakkara, who leads the Democratic Left Front said.
A staunch critic of former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidential aspirations, Nanayakkara slammed what he called the ‘Shangri-La’ policies for economic development, saying the proposals contained no real plans to ensure the progress of people.
“Their plans centre around throwing breadcrumbs from a laden table to the masses. When the upper classes profit, they think the lower classes can live off the scraps of that wealth.
What we need is not economic development, we need plans that will ensure that people are uplifted,” he explained. The JO talked a lot about taking over the Government, but the reality was that the pro-Rajapaksa faction of the UPFA was actually asking the people for a blank cheque.
“We talk about taking over the Government, but the JO has not even made a single concrete step towards this. We want to take over the Government but we also want a blank cheque. This is how easy we think toppling the government is,” he asserted.