President striving to be a Mugabe

(August 22, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Ranjan Ramanayake, the popular actor and UNP Chief Ministerial candidate for the Sabaragamuwa PC elections to be held on 23 Aug. said , that the President is trying to hold on to power like Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe , and win elections by a reign of terror. Even Dictators like Mussolini and Hitler had to meet the waterloo, he warned. At the Press conference yesterday (21 Aug) at the UNP media unit, he explained how President Rajapakse and his Govt. are moving heaven and earth to protect Ministers like Mervyn Silva despite the public outcry against him and his ‘goons’ for their outrageous hooliganism and violence unleashed on law abiding citizens and the Media.

The Govt. is deliberately spawning lawlessness and tyranny in the country in order to perpetuate itself in power by suppressing the people’s dissent and Media’s exposures of Govt. misdeeds. This is the first time in the country, a Govt. had allowed such monumental election violence to be unleashed on the Opposition parties and the people, he lamented.

President can strive hard to imitate Mugabe, but, it is for the people at this election to resist this terror and villainy of the Govt. by ousting its candidates, and prove they cannot allow him to make a Zimbabwe of Sri Lanka, he exhorted.
- Sri Lanka Guardian