Veteran actor Peter D’Almeida, deputy general secretary of Ceylon Tradesmen and General Workers’ Union, presented his opinion on the current president during Sirasa TV’s ‘National Mission’ program. Mr. Almeida’s comment is published below. (Sri Lanka Latest News)
Question – What do you think about the new president?
In my opinion, he has a history. That history is not successful. He was prime minister five times. Even when we go to a job, we are asked what was the last job we did. If you have an interview to be the president, they will ask you what you did last time. Finally, my party is lost, destroyed, without a single seat, this huge U.N.P. of JR. The party is lost, there is no one in the parliament, I came from the bonus seat. So you appoint him as the leader of your company from the interview? I don’t need to say anything more than that. But who does he stand for now? For the country? If you stand up for the country, you should first remove the people who brought down the country. But that’s not what he does. Protecting them is his basic need. Then they are now Shape.
To give one example, he is talking about investment. Investors came to Sri Lanka. I think the Taisei company. They came to invest. The Japanese ambassador said that a minister asked for a bribe from our company. So the ambassador of Japan said. what did Gotabaya was there in those days. That minister was fired. What did this president do? He came and said that we will appoint a commission. A commission was appointed and said that he did not do such a thing. Then the Japanese ambassador was slapped in the ear. The Japanese government is waiting. According to Japanese culture, they don’t worry.
They are waiting, okay, you gave us a personal slap in the ear. If he is building the country, he should tell the Japanese ambassador if such corruption happened? The Japanese ambassador is not crazy. According to that, if I appoint a man like you, I see that he has come to protect the country? Corruption. Accordingly, what did Japan do? The President came to the Parliament and said that this is a discussion of our debt holders, and Japan has now come forward. Within an hour, the Japanese government said that there is no such plan for us. They might assume that. It was beautifully said in English that must be their wishful thinking. They must be thinking something like this. Have you seen the return? Now he was going to negotiate with Japan. A major credit holder is Japan. So the worker said, right? Doing something primitive like this? If the Japanese government says this in parliament, what kind of international recognition will he have in an hour? If the president tells someone, within an hour. This is a myth.
Our middle class is generally considered to be one of great potential. There is no such possibility. Those discussions did not exist. Because the debt has to be cut. We were not told by the IMF. How much debt should be cut from it? But everyone agrees to cut off one amount of debt. Private debt holders Japan, Paris Club, India, China. They haven’t even started those discussions yet. So what is his great ability? We do not believe that he will save the country.
