Manusha and Harin have given up their minister posts

Labor and Foreign Employment Minister Manusha Nanayakkara and Tourism and Lands Minister Harin Fernando have resigned from their ministerial posts.

In this regard, the two ministers have issued a joint press release.

The announcement is as follows.

We had realized this situation very early and we demanded government power in the parliamentary election held after the last presidential election, but the people’s will made us act as opposition MPs.

Since then, we have been closely studying the failures of President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s governance, and we have continued to shout about the failure of the President. We socialized the opinion that the president is a failure. Knowing that the program being implemented by the President was paving the way for a serious social, economic and political crisis, we played a big role in the opposition to prevent it.

In order to find solutions to the crisis that could have arisen, we socialized the opinion that an all-party government must be built that unites all the political parties representing the parliament. We stood for it. We fought for it inside and outside the parliament. We asked all the parties, sometimes sensibly and sometimes impulsively, to find a solution together.

But there was no positive response from the party leaders for an all-party, progressive political journey to solve the country’s problems. All parties did not come together for a collective program to save the country.

As a result of that, both of us assumed the positions of ministers and gave the active contribution that we could give to find solutions to the economic problem that was arising. We took that decision without thinking about our political future.

As the Minister of Tourism and Lands, and as the Minister of Labor and Foreign Employment, we followed the urgent measures to be taken to bring the necessary dollars to the country. We created an immediate and sustainable program for that because we understood the depth of this problem. At the same time, we were working to provide urgent reliefs that can be given to the people.

But the crisis, which has been brewing for many years, cannot be completely ended with immediate solutions given in six weeks. It was with this that the general public, who had no faith in the parliamentary system, took to the streets and started fighting again. Now we are once again demanding the formation of an all-party government that we fought for earlier.

In order to form an all-party government and provide quick relief to the people, we hereby announce that we both resign from the positions of the Minister of Labor and Foreign Employment and the minister of Tourism and Land with immediate effect.