Rajapaksa Regime was crowding democratic space in Sri Lanka: Wickremasinghe

Sri Lanka's Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe on Friday said that it was his view that the previous regime of President Mahinda Rajpaksa was crowding the democratic space in the island-nation, and therefore, steps and plans were initiated to remove it once snap presidential polls were announced for January 8, 2015.

He also said he did not see the coming together of different opposition parties to form a National Government at the Centre as a disparate political arrangement, and added that having a Sri Lanka Freedom Party leader as president or a UNP leader as Prime Minister or ministers from parties that have been opposing each other in elections consecutively, as much of a problem.

He told Thanthi TV, "We were all united on a few issues... Restoration of democracy in Sri Lanka, end of the Rajapaksa regime, the need to remove the executive presidency and finally the need to have a national reconciliation. So, we got together. The fact is that Rajapaksa was crowding the democratic space in Sri Lanka. One of the the smaller parties that has always opposed the UNP consistently said, "Look, fish need water, we need space... He is not giving us the space...let's all get together, create a democratic system, strengthen it, and then, we can all go back to the party politics that we knew".

He further stated, "It is like political parties getting together in a national crisis. It's generally a war, an invasion which brings them together... But here, it was a major political crisis which decided... Will this country be a multi-party democracy or, will it be the Rajapaksa regime... It affected the SLFP itself...Because the SLFP was being replaced, the cadres, the members were being replaced by the henchmen of the Rajapaksa regime. This is why the general secretary of the SLFP became the Common candidate. Today, he is the president of the country."

When asked whether this set up could go on after the parliamentary elections, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister said, "Yes, we have decided that we will work together at least for two years and we could assess the situation, can we stay on or should we separate."

"I like all the parties to get together. As I said in Sinhalese, I want to make the whole parliament a government. One group will be the ministers and deputy ministers, the rest of them will become the oversight Committee. Like the European Parliament or the American Congress, exercising powers of oversight over the government. Therefore, the chairman of the Oversight committee will also be a powerful political figure," he added.

When asked whether it was practically feasible to go on for that long, Wickramasinghe said, "Yes. We can go for two years...We can manage for two years.