Q: What’s the purpose of this protest?

A: For 74 years, this country has entertained theatrical politics. We have never had a politician who’d stay true to what he or she said on a stage. We have never had a politician who treated everyone equally despite their race, party or caste. We have never had equal rights.

In other countries, politicians have cats and dogs as pets. Here, they keep thugs, drug dealers and businesspeople on their laps as their pets. Those who campaigned for political parties may have been favoured but people in power have never ever listened to the ordinary citizen.

Politicians make sure that voters are bought for a packet of lunch, a bottle of arrack, an asbestos sheet or some bathwater, so that they can continue with their corrupt ways.

Our politicians get their thugs to destroy a shop owned by a Tamil person and another would point fingers at the Sinhalese community. In the same way, another politician would get someone to destroy a business owned by a Sinhalese person and point fingers at the Tamil community. Later, they pay each other back.

At election time, they create chaos with issues that don’t exist, just to manipulate the intellectual voter into an emotional frame of mind. That time is over. We won’t let politicians divide us anymore.