Rajapaksa Third Best Leader Of Free Sri Lanka: Survey | News Post India

Rajapaksa Third Best Leader Of Free Sri Lanka: Survey | News Post India 

I am surprised at these results, but here's what average Sri Lankans have to say to an independent poll.

"...President Mahinda Rajapaksa is the third best among Sri Lanka's leaders since the country became independent in 1948, shows a survey.
Conducted in January by Nielsen and the Sunday Times newspaper, the survey shows that Rajapaksa is number three, with 21 percent of the 519 respondents preferring him to other leaders, past and present.
President R. Premadasa, who ruled between 1988 and 1993, was marginally ahead of him with support from 22 percent respondents.
But the most well thought of leader was Sri Lanka's first prime minister, D.S. Senanayake, who got 31 percent of the vote, the highest. Senanayake is hailed as the 'Father of the Nation' as he fought for Sri Lanka's independence and helped the common man by rejuvenating the agricultural sector.

Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, father of the 1956 ' Sinhala Only' policy, which put power into the hands of the Sinhalese majority in the island and unleashed a revolution or sorts, scored only five percent. His wife and prime minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who put Sri Lanka on the international map as one of the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, and who started many import substitution industries in the 1960s and 1970s, got even less - four percent.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who ruled Sri Lanka for 11 years winning election after election, got a mere one percent. The present leader of the opposition and former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe also got only one percent.
Rajapaksa will be happy to note that 60 years after Sri Lanka became independent, most Sri Lankans have expressed satisfaction in being Sri Lankan. Ninety-two percent said that they were happy to be born in Sri Lanka and 70 percent said they would not want to migrate.
Asked if the various ethnic groups - Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims - would be able to live in harmony in the island which is now torn by separatism, war and terrorism, 81 percent said that they could. And 86 percent believed that peace was possible.
Asked about freedom of expression, in the context of the recent attacks on the media, 64 percent said that Sri Lankans enjoyed it. Sixty percent said that they had the freedom to live as they wanted.
And there is something for the international community too. Almost 60 percent felt that other countries were interfering in Sri Lanka's internal affairs..."

Unfortunately, due to the advent of the present gentleman without balls as the leader of the United National Party (UNP), Sri Lanka has been effectively without a credible opposition. That is a situation which forebodes a bad future for the country, given the historic propensity of our politicians to abuse power and escape without consequences even when they are finally out of it. The UNP rank and file needs to find a credible leader who can build the grand old party back to its past glory.