Full Translation of the Letter sent by President Maithripala Sirisena to former

President Mahinda Rajapaksa on 13th August 2015

Dear Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa,

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led coalition, which had secured victory in four
presidential elections and four general elections across a span of two decades, suffered
defeat on the 8th of January 2015 under your leadership. I am writing to you now seven
months after that defeat and in my capacity as current SLFP Party Leader.
You, like me, learned the books of politics and entered the national stage via the SLFP. You
held office as Executive President across two terms by virtue of the SLFP and the trust
placed upon it by the people of this nation. Yet, today I hold the Office of the President
through entirely different circumstances; as a common candidate of the opposition who
consolidated the nationwide uprising against your rule and to secure the Office of the
President, which was slipping from your grasp and away from the party, within the SLFP as
a party. The secret behind the success to achieve a united position on my behalf by all
opposition parties and groups was the honest, pure, and heartfelt bond that existed between
myself and the SLFP.
Election loss is an unpleasant experience. Even so, after your defeat on the 8th of January,
SLFP members did not suffer the hardships and indignities faced by their predecessors
during 1977 or 2001. This change in fortune was brought about because it was I, who had
been an SLFP member for 48 years and held the position of General Secretary for 13 years,
who was voted in as President. I acted to prevent all post-election violence against our
membership and secure their safety. I urge you to carefully consider the current fate of
yourself and the SLFP if someone other than Maithripala Sirisena had presented as the
common candidate and defeated you. Hence I am emphasizing once more, through my
victory, I had protected the political safety of the SLFP parliamentary contingent, provincial
and local representatives, as well as members working at village level and all involved. You
must also consider the fate of all SLFP members if I had dispersed parliament immediately
after I was sworn in as President.
Have you forgotten the many instances where I had acted in your support through numerous
decisive challenges during the November 2005 election campaign? There should be no
reason for you to forget my tireless efforts to establish you as the Prime Minister after the
2004 general election. In that situation, I stood with you to quash the disruptive effort put
forth by Mr. Wimal Weerawansa to mobilise the JVP to prevent your installation as Prime
Minister. During 2005, I stood on your behalf to dispel serious contention within the party and
confirm your nomination as the partys candidate for the presidency. As party General
Secretary, I laboured with a sense of duty and courage to confirm your nomination. Many
people who claim loyalty to you in the current environment were then working with Mr. Ranil
Wickramasinghe to secure his victory and obtain ministerial positions in a UNP-led
government.
You have been fully aware of the fact that Mr. Gotabaya Rajapaksa had acted to break down
the long-term political friendship you and I had fostered as senior members of the SLFP. The
anti-Maithripala policy undertaken by Gotabaya, whereby he sought to remove me from
political life by portraying me as an ineffective politician, came to an end only after it had built
a barrier around your entire family. When Mr. Basil Rajapaksa was repeatedly undermining
my political career, I had hoped that you possessed the dignity to safeguard my

independence. Yet you failed to display any capacity for such dignity even till the day I
presented myself as the common candidate of the opposition.
During the three meetings held between us within the past seven months, and during the
telephone conversation held two days prior to you signing nominations for Kurunegala, I
emphasised that you should not take part in the upcoming election because I was prepared
to take up leadership and responsibility of the SLFP campaign towards an election victory.
However, my aspiration to take up that duty as the newly elected President of the country
and leader of the SLFP has been dashed since you signed the nomination to contest.
If you had opted not to contest the general election, I was at a crucial position to restore trust
of the SLFP among all those who worked diligently to secure my victory in the presidential
election. These included Tamil and Muslim political parties, civil society organisations, the
urban middle class, the working class, generations of young people and a multitude of
others.
My proposal for you to avoid contesting the general election was not borne from a wish or
need to completely remove you from the political landscape. Instead, I had proposed
legislative action to establish an honourable continuity to your political capabilities. I am fully
aware that many members of your family were in agreement with my arrangement. However,
you fully refuted this measure because you had become a prisoner of small political parties
and groups that held no love or goodwill towards the SLFP; they had built connections with
us only via the UPFA coalition. Their only goal was to exploit your political standing to secure
parliamentary seats for themselves.
You must take responsibility for giving opportunities to such narrow-minded political gangs
and groups to take dominion over the SLFP, which possessed 64 years of proud history, and
governed this nation for the greatest duration after independence, for 35 years, as a giant
among politics. In this situation, it is distressing to observe the manner in which many senior
SLFP members have been rendered helpless in front of these political opportunists as they
campaign for votes at the district level. In the absence of votes and sanction from members
of the SLFP, you must immediately cease the permissions given to such small gangs and
groups with no political legacy to determine the future path of this great party.
SWRD Bandaranayake, the founder of the SLFP, endeavoured to faithfully represent ethnic,
religious, and societal realities of our nation when he formed the first executive group of the
party involving universally respected candidates such as Bernard Aluwihare, Badurdeen
Mohammad, and Thangarajah in 1951. Even though the SLFP was influenced by ethnic and
religious agenda during 1956, the following years, especially those under the leadership of
Sirimavo Bandaranayake and Chandrika Kumaratunga, have seen the party establish itself
as a worthwhile socialist democratic enterprise that respects the ethnic, religious and social
pluralism of Sri Lanka, representing all ethnicities and religious groups.
Yet, within the last nine years during which you provided leadership to the SLFP, it has
become a party that turned its back to the social reality of pluralism in Sri Lanka. Even with
hindsight of the defeat you suffered on the 8th of January, have you not seen how the
flames of communal hatred fanned by yourself have worked against you? Such has been the
transition of the SLFP into a party that exclusively drives a Sinhalese-Buddhist agenda.
Sinking into communalism of this nature is not befitting of an eminent political party of the
calibre of the SLFP.
To save our party from that insular trajectory, to rebuild the SLFP as a party that does not
represent a single ethnic or religious group, and instead represents all Sri Lankans, is the
challenge ahead of me.

Still, those who have now crowded around you, are they not instigating racism to garner
votes? Truly, such racists are not members of the SLFP and they should not be allowed
opportunities to gain control of the party and its supporters.
During your tenure as President, you repeatedly stated that the populace of this nation was
not divided into two sections as majority race versus minority race. Yet, from the start of the
previous presidential election campaign and all the way to an interview you provided to a
national newspaper on the 12th of August, either you or those representing you have
blatantly instigated communal hatred at most opportunities. The spread of communalism in
this manner is not accepted by the Buddhism I worship nor all other religions. It is also
unacceptable to any humanitarian philosophy.
I would further emphasise that, at this moment, when the Tamil and Muslim citizens of this
nation had placed their limitless trust in me, if the SLFP campaign to the forthcoming general
election on the 17th of August was conducted according to my direction, I am certain that the
opportunity existed to earn the trust and support of all ethnicities, including Sinhalese, Tamil
and Muslim, towards our party to an extent unprecedented in our history.
To overcome the challenges of the 21st century, we are faced with a need to establish a
modern Sri Lankan nation enriched with ethnic unity and understanding. Thus to fan the
flames of racism at this critical juncture as an attempt at momentary political gain is a great
crime against the nation as well as the party.
When the debate concerning election nominations intensified, the primary challenge I faced
in my capacities as Party Leader and The President was to prevent the dismantling of this
great party and ensure its continuity into the future. With a two-party system in place in our
country, I believe you are aware of the dire political consequences that will follow the splitting
and weakening of one of the major parties. It is for that very reason, when you and your
allies were prepared to split the party over any small matter and submit nominations
separately, I acquiesced on purpose to safeguard party unity.
When the Gampaha district nominations were being prepared, I expected the Western
Province Chief Minister to withdraw his nomination when it became apparent that providing
nominations to three members of the Ranatunga family was not feasible. Yet, unfortunately,
you were convinced in this setting that if the Chief Minister was not to receive a nomination,
you would quit the SLFP and contest separately. Therefore, even when one member of the
Ranatunga family left the SLFP and joined the UNP, I remained silent and allowed you a
momentary victory. I must emphasise that the SLFP had grown and established itself over
sixty four years and my strategic decision to back down at this critical juncture was the
reason that prevented its dismantling over a problem involving the nomination of one
individual.
I was not the only person to propose a national unity government. The central committee of
the SLFP as well as its parliamentary contingent provided their full approval when the
proposal was put forth. Members of our party who accepted ministerial positions in the
national government thus established continue to face strenuous condemnation from groups
that claim to be your followers. It has become a provocative issue in the battle for
preferential votes.
I feel it is my obligation to convey to you the truth I know in relation to this matter. There are
many who are now crowding around you to exploit any electioneering value left in your
character. Their purpose is to callously drink that last drop of political blood while singing
your praises. They are also calling me in secret, sending messages through envoys or
during meetings, to confirm that they are ready and willing to collaborate with me after the

election and requesting that I provide ministerial positions or other means to secure their
political futures. They are taking opportunistic actions and deceitfully appearing in front of
you to falsify allegiance. They are also attacking contesting SLFP ministers who were part of
the unity government by portraying them as traitors to the people to destroy any trust placed
by voters. I watched with interest as those who claimed loyalty to you transitioned from
initially acting to suggest a sense of great division within the party to eventually using my
image for UPFA campaigning as the election drew close. You, your name, and your image
had been pawned dirt cheap by this electioneering mafia and if they are to continue further,
the defeat of the UPFA will be written on their terms.
The media recently reported that you maintained a desire to work together with me. If you do
hold such a hope, there is an important fact that I must emphasise to you. When you passed
the 18th amendment whilst quashing any opposition, you callously destroyed the democratic
freedoms and rights of the nation and its people. Not only that, the 18th amendment
devastated the socialist democratic ideals which served as the lifeblood of the SLFP and did
great injustice to numerous senior members of the party.
In your effort to indefinitely secure the powers of the Executive Presidency, the manner in
which you seized the freedom and dignity of the people, the party, and the political futures of
its dedicated senior members, is wholly immoral. If you had retired after your two terms were
complete, as previous presidents had done so, the opportunity existed for one of our senior
members to be voted in as President while another may have been installed as Prime
Minister. It is now clear that you are once again attempting to take earned opportunities
away from them after the current election. Do they not deserve their due even at this point?
I believe a senior SLFP member who had not been afforded an opportunity to date should be
installed as Prime Minister if the UPFA manages to secure the 113 seats necessary for a
parliamentary majority in the upcoming election. If the UPFA comes close to establishing
majority but fails to do so, I can act in my capacity as the President to negotiate the
establishment of a majority to form government. Even in that scenario, the Prime Ministerial
position will be offered to a different SLFP senior member instead of you.
A true strength of our party is that it the only party in the country to comprise a multitude of
senior leaders with far-sighted political acumen, capability and maturity to hold the office of
the Prime Minister. After the election, a Prime Ministerial candidate will be chosen from
amongst senior leaders such as Nimal Siripala de Silva, John Senevirathne, Chamal
Rajapakse, Athauda Senevirathne, AHM Fowzie, Susil Premajayantha and Anura
Priyadharshana Yapa. On behalf of the nation, its people, and the SLFP, I graciously request
you to display your willingness, support, generosity, and blessing in acknowledging this
appointment.
Since your moment of defeat on the 8th of January and up till now, the manner and number
of instances where you have visited temple after temple throughout the country, whilst acting
to garner plentiful opportunities for media exposure, is truly absurd. Since I am fully aware of
your manner of conduct from the 26th of January 2010 till the 21st of November 2014, I
doubted whether the multitude of temple visits within the last six months had inspired the
development any noble thoughts within you. My doubt has been confirmed since I have
learned that your communications have been full of hatred, anger, bitterness, and seething
self-interest during private meetings with party members.
Taking the full situation into context and considering the good of the party and the nation, I
am requesting you to act with wisdom rather than your heart in the lead up to Election Day. I
am requesting you to cease statements fuelling racial tension and to cease instigating

malicious divisions within the party. All in all, I am requesting you to contribute to positive
actions that will build a favourable position for the UPFA coalition to earn a maximum
allotment of parliamentary seats from the upcoming election.

Sincerely,
Maithripala Sirisena
Party Leader
Sri Lanka Freedom Party.