The action followed yesterday’s letter by Sirisena to Rajapaksa in which the SLFP chief had vowed that Rajapaksa will not be made the Prime Minister even if his party won Monday’s parliamentary election.
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Ceding the party’s campaign to Rajapaksa could well be a political masterstroke by Sirisena, given the prevailing political scenarios in the country.
“They want ministerial portfolios”, Sirisena said without naming names.
A win for the current ruling coalition “will be taken positively by investors as that will mean continuance of the existing policies”, said Saurav Anand, South Asia economist at Standard Chartered Plc.
He has also suspended the two leaders’ membership.
“The UNP and their coalition have momentum”, said Alan Keenan, a Sri Lanka analyst at the worldwide Crisis Group.
His neighbour, K.G. Manjula Wijesinghe, a Buddhist, says: “Rajapaksa did not give any benefits to the public when he was in power”.
Eight months ago, it appeared that Mahinda Rajapaksa wrote the script for his own presidency in Sri Lanka. “If this competition continues you would have two centres of power in Sri Lanka’s foreign policy”.
Sirisena failed, however, to pass a constitutional amendment that would overhaul the voting system to make it more representative, prompting him to dissolve parliament in June nearly a year before its term expired.
So far, Sri Lanka has avoided large displays of election violence that typically plague the country, but with one exception.
After issuing a hard-hitting letter to his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa earlier this week, President Maithripala Sirisena on Friday sought to assert his position as the head of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United People’s Progressive Alliance (UPFA) by removing general secretaries of the SLFP and the UPFA, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa and Susil Premajayantha, regarded as loyalists of Mr. Rajapaksa, from their position, according to local news agencies. Some Sirisena allies jumped to Wickremesinghe’s United National Party.
If reports from Sri Lanka are to be believed, the Rajapaksa-led UPFA is heading for an electoral defeat, which effectively will foil the former president’s ambitions of becoming prime minister.
Rajapaksa’s camp rejects assertions that a victory for him would lead to instability.
“It is amusing you have started to visit temples around the country along with media coverage following your election loss”, President says Rajapaka’s political behavior and statements however indicate his burning hatred and egoism. It’s risen 10 percent since hitting a 2015 low in March, and is up 2 percent this year.
“The new political leadership elected to work with the President next week must be fearless in pursuing accountability for those responsible, no matter how powerful they are, and must put in place a credible plan to prevent torture in the future”.
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“We are afraid that the persecution of minorities could happen again if Rajapaksa returns”, said Mohammad Sifnas, who runs a grocery stall in the central market.
