President
As president, Wijetunga set about his work in his own simplistic, inimitable fashion. After the authoritarian Premadasa, Wijetunga ushered in a more political free era.
His rule also coincided with the rise of Chandrika Kumaratunga within the ranks of the SLFP. For some of the elite the daughter of two Prime Ministers was a refreshing contrast to the humble village peasant in President Wijetunga.
He did not believe that peace could be achieved by negotiating with the LTTE. His rather hawkish approach to the ethnic conflict also made him unpopular especially among the minorities who traditionally backed his party. The Eastern Province was liberated from the LTTE during his tenure except Thoppigala.
After a decisive defeat in the Southern Provincial Council Election in 1994, he dissolved parliament prematurely in June that year, in a desperate bid to stem the rising wave of popularity of Chandrika Kumaratunga.
However his party was defeated in the 1994 general election and Wijetunga graciously appointed Kumaratunga as Prime Minister. Even though under the constitution, Wijetunga was bestowed with wide powers, he wisely chose not to exercise much authority, letting the Prime Minister manage the affairs of the country.
He decided not to contest the presidential election. He relinquished office in November 1994 after Kumaratunga was elected President by an unprecedented majority.
Read more about this topic: Dingiri Banda Wijetunga
Famous quotes containing the word president:
“Colonel “Bat” Guano: Okay, I’m going to get your money for you. But if you don’t get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what’s going to happen to you?
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake: What?
Colonel “Bat” Guano: You’re going to have to answer to the Coca-Cola company.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“I don’t know a great deal about life in Washington for women—I spent a summer there once working in the White House, and my main memories of the experience have to do with a very bad permanent wave I have always been convinced kept me from having a meaningful relationship with President Kennedy ...”
—Nora Ephron (b. 1941)
“We should have an army so organized and so officered as to be capable in time of emergency, in cooperation with the National Militia, and under the provision of a proper national volunteer law, rapidly to expand into a force sufficient to resist all probable invasion from abroad and to furnish a respectable expeditionary force if necessary in the maintenance of our traditional American policy which bears the name of President Monroe.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)