President defends appointment of MR as Prime Minister

President Maithripala Sirisena today said he had no alternative, but to appoint the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the Prime Minister as  Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government failed to cooperate with him.

In an address to the nation, Mr. Sirisena said that Wickremesinghe worked against the Yahapalana concept and corruption and fraud became rampant.

¨He failed to take collective decisions and there was no consensus in the government due to Wickremesinghe’s actions," he said.

He said he noticed major policy differences as well as cultural differences leading to a political crisis.

¨I took some steps back and sometimes he took my powers too and worked,¨  he said.

He said due to the Central Bank Bond scam the Yahapala principles were destroyed in three months after coming into power and attempts to amend the Bribery Act to punish those responsible was also delayed by the UNP government.

He said the other reason to remove Wickremesinghe and name Rajapaksa as the Premier was the recent disclosure by Namal Kumara about the plot to assassinate him and Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

He said that the investigations were handed over by the IGP to another unit, instead of the CID leading to suspicion and information was revealed that one of the Ministers too was involved in it.

President Sirisena said he was appealing to all 225 members in Parliament to co-operate with him and continue the government