U.N.P : Uncle’s News Plant Party

You cannot locate the term “Plant News” using Google or Yahoo. Plant News specialises in Sri Lanka. Plant News Sri Lanka became extraordinary due to Ranil. The killing of President Premadasa led to Ranil’s appointment as prime minister in 1993, rather than a democratic vote. During his first press conference as prime minister, he stated that he was the first to come from a media family. It was implied by Ranil that his family owns a media company.

Ranil is the first Prime Minister and President of Sri Lanka to originate from a media company-owning family. As a result, Ranil believes he can play the game of politics by staying at home or in the office and planting false stories in the media, rather than racing after people till his legs are broken.

Ranil has led the U.N.P. for nearly thirty years. His leadership was secured by the news-planting of his family-owned newspaper enterprise. When there is a rebellion against his leadership inside the party, his media section plants false information about the rebel party leaders. This news fabrication resulted in Ranil’s leadership being protected and the party losing. The party’s leaders left the party intermittently, and the party itself left the U.N.P. and founded a separate party, which resulted in Ranil not being elected from Colombo. Historically, the U.N.P was referred to as the Uncle Nephew party. Now, the UNP is their news-planting party.

After the party vanished from politics and its leader lost his seat, the party ceased to exist. The media unit of Ranil fabricated stories to demonstrate that there is still a party. The most significant rumour created by his media team is that a group of Samagi Jana Balavega lawmakers are prepared to join Ranil. In addition, local government members who joined the United People’s Force will return to the U.N.P., while those who joined the SJB will be ejected and replaced with new councillors. The ultimate outcome of this news planting was that the Podujana Peramuna seized control of local government bodies held by the United National Party.

In the midst of planting this story, Ranil was appointed Prime Minister and President. Following his election as president, Ranil’s media division internationalised the news plant. The Presidential Secretariat was quoted in international media as saying that Japan has expressed its willingness to host a meeting to restructure Sri Lanka’s debt. However, Japan not only released a notification stating that the story was untrue, but the Japanese Finance Minister also stated in a press conference that the news was fake.

The media team of Ranil realised it was risky to plant news regarding debt restructuring; therefore they began to plant news to break Samagi Jana Balawewgaya. Ranil’s media unit began spreading rumours that 20 MPs will defect from the Samagi Jana Balavegaya, 15 are coming, and that there will be a reorganisation of the ministries and that they will be awarded ministerial positions within the next two to three days’ time. But no member of parliament joined the government.

 After that, Ranil’s media unit shifted the news focus to the Podujana Peramuna, claiming that its members will join the United National Party. It said, according to the results of a survey conducted by Prasanna Ranatunga, he will join Ranil since he is the leader who accepted the challenge, as reported by that news source. Separated from Maithri, SLFP legislators will join the U.N.P led by Ranil. Plant News declared that their intention to join an UNP alliance.

When the Election Commission decided to hold the local government vote, the news plant stopped because no one from the Podujana Peramuna or the Sri Lankan Freedom Party’s anti-Maithri faction expressed their willingness to join the UNP. Finally, Prasanna Ranatunga, Mahinda Amaraweera, Bandula Gunawardena presented their candidate lists from Podujana Peramuna. The UNP was helpless. Ranil learned that if there were local government elections, he would lose the few local government councillors he currently has. Since then, the plant operations of Ranil’s media unit begin to target at the Election Commission.

The largest of these plots was the secret meeting between the election commissioner and Saliya Peiris. Saliya Peiris maintained that he did not meet with the Election Commissioner in secret, and that the Election Commission chose him as its attorney when the Attorney General declined to represent the commission.

He stated that the then-Election Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya selected him to represent the 2020 general election vote petitions. The next largest plant was that the Election Commission has a division. In the past, when there was a rebellion against the leadership of the UNP, his media section spread false information claiming the rebel group was divided. In the same manner, they fabricated reports that the Election Commission is divided. Finally, the Election Commission itself convened a news conference to demonstrate that there is no discord among them.

Now the whole country is confused by the fact that the plants that he tried to control the UNP is used to control the country. The state administration and the police have gone to the dogs because of the plant that the Inspector General of Police told the election commissioner that he wanted the arrears of the election costs before the election, and about the letter written by the Secretary of State Administration not to accept election deposit money to the district secretaries.

‘Is it possible to control a country by planting news…?’

A party with a healthy working committee obedient to the leadership can be controlled by news plants. But a country is not a party. You cannot control a country by planting news. It is not possible to control the police and election commission by planting news. A party that had more than 50 lakh votes was reduced to 2 lakh and went bankrupt after planting news.

‘Will the same happens for the already bankrupt Sri Lanka…?’

The country urges that local government elections are needed before the same fate befell upon. According to the country’s constitution, the legislature is divided into the executive and the judiciary. The Legislature is there to pass the decisions made in the Executive President’s Cabinet. That task has been entrusted to the Prime Minister. Parliamentary party leaders, including the Prime Minister, Speaker, leader of the house and the Leader of the Opposition, decide to pass bills and debate them. Now Ranil come to the Parliament as the President and take over the power of the Prime Minister and decide whether to bring the Bills to the Parliament or not. This is a distortion of the separation of powers between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary as per the constitution.

As soon as Ranil was elected as President, he addressed the Parliament and said:

I have spent 45 years in this parliament. My life was in this parliament. I am especially thankful for giving me this honour from the Parliament…’

No one would have thought that Ranil, who was elected as the President by the Parliament, would come to the Parliament and use the executive power to bypass the decrees of the Parliament.

After becoming the leader of the opposition in 1995, Ranil appeared to defend the parliamentary system. Former President Chandrika in 2001 when Parliament was adjourned and announced a elections, in 2001 when Chandrika adopted anti-democratic measures to prevent the motion of no confidence presented by the opposition and in 2004 when Chandrika used executive power to dissolve Ranil’s government, in 2001 When Chandrika used the executive power to prevent the impeachment against former Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva, and when President Maithripala unconstitutionally removed Ranil from the post of Prime Minister and tried to dissolved Parliament in 2018, he preached about Commonwealth values and the Westminster system, saying that the executive cannot interfere with the legislature.

Today, Ranil himself has started to control the parliament by using the executive power to postpone the vote. Neither JR, Premadasa, Chandrika, Mahinda, or Maithripala came to the Parliament and used the executive power to bypass decrees.

Chandrika, who became the president after pledging to protect the freedom of the media, attacked the media the most.

Mahinda, who went to Geneva for human rights for the first time to advocate for human rights, violated human rights the most as president? He also attacked the people who go to Geneva for human rights.

Ranil, who advocated for the parliamentary system, is today the president and is undermining the parliament the most. Ranil gave a wonderful speech at the 50th anniversary of UNP.

On September 6, 1946, they met at the Palm Court House and founded the UNP on that day. During those 50 years, as the ruling party in the parliament, as the opposition party, leading the people through the provincial councils, through the local councils, through the village councils, through the municipal councils, we are gathered here today to celebrate the fifty years of that stable political party. That is why Mr. D.S. Senanayake said at the Palm Court House that the establishment of the United National Party is second only to the constitution of the parliamentary system of this country. The United National Party was created to protect that system…Ranil Wickramasinghe

07.12.1996

It is not known how Mr. D. S. Senanayake feels in his grave when, this party panics over mini-elections and attempts to destroy the parliamentary system.

By Upul Joseph Fernando

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