Mangala calls Lanka an official dictatorship after impeachment vote

On the night of 11 January 2013, Sri Lanka officially becomes a dictatorship, UNP Member of Parliament Mangala Samaraweera charged yesterday.

“Up to yesterday at least we kept up appearances of being at least a nominal democracy. But as of Friday night, the Rajapaksa Government sheds the façade and the country becomes a pariah of the international community,” the Opposition Lawmaker said.

Samaraweera called what lawyers have dubbed Black Friday – as Government members in the majority prepared to vote on the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice – “the darkest day in Sri Lanka’s recent history”.

The UNP MP was speaking at a launch of its communication drive at the Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya Headquarters last morning. The fiery MP said that the UNP’s communication drive was critical to the party’s success because under the current fascist regime, all voices of dissent had been suppressed and the media had been killed, assaulted, exiled and threatened into submission.

Samaraweera added that the regime was proceeding with the fraudulent impeachment and creating a hue and cry about the Chief Justice’s finances but no one was questioning the mass scale corruption in the ruling family.

“How are members of the ruling family top investors in the Colombo stock Exchange when they claim they don’t have a cent in their names and even a house to call their own? The people have a right to ask these questions,” he said.