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President gives his side of the story on Thursday’s special cabinet meeting
President Maithripala Sirisena in Matale. Pic Mahesh Ruwan Keerthirathna
President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday said he called a Special Cabinet meeting on Thursday only because Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe wanted to present a cabinet paper on the abolition of the executive presidency.
Speaking at the Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s District Convention at Nalanda in Matale, the President said Minister Ravi Karunanayake telephoned him around 6 am on Thursday to say that the Prime Minister wanted a special Cabinet meeting convened between 2 pm and 4 pm that day to discuss a proposal to abolish the executive presidency.
“I told him (Mr. Karunanayaka) that I can’t convene a Cabinet meeting without first hearing from the PM and I asked him to tell the PM to call me back. However, the PM never called. Then I called the PM myself and asked him whether he wanted the Cabinet convened to discuss the abolition of the executive presidency. He told me they had discussed it with many other parties and had reached agreement and asked me to convene the Cabinet between 2. pm and 4. pm. So, I fixed the meeting for 3pm,” he explained.
President Sirisena claimed that the Cabinet Secretary informed in the afternoon that the PM had sent a cabinet paper in both Sinhala and English on the abolition of the executive presidency. Only the English version had been signed by the PM, he said. “I told the Cabinet Secretary that it was enough and to take the cabinet paper up for discussion when the Cabinet was convened. However, as the meeting got underway, I heard the PM going up to the Cabinet Secretary and telling him not to present the cabinet paper that he sent. I pretended not to have heard it.”
The President added that when he asked the PM what he wanted to do, he started off speaking about the need to abolish the executive presidency, reminding that he (President) was also elected on the promise to abolish it.
Mr Sirisena said he had no objection to abolishing the executive presidency and it was not his fault if the Government failed to present a motion to that effect. At this point, a number of Government Ministers, including Rauff Hakeem, Mano Ganeshan, P. Digambaram, Malik Samarawickrama, Mangala Samaraweera, Harin Fernando, Thalatha Atukorale and Champika Ranawaka strongly spoke out against moves to abolish the executive presidency, the President revealed.
“There were heated arguments. So, I told them that I can’t resolve this issue and it was up to the ministers to discuss it among themselves and their constituent parties and to get back to me. I then said ‘Jayawewa’ and ended the meeting.”
President Sirisena said he needed to clear the matter up as some people were now attempting to blame him for trying to abolish the executive presidency at the last minute.