Rajapaksa allies to form new Sri Lanka opposition alliance
Leftist parties plan to break away from President Maithripala Sirisena's UPFA coalition, say senior leaders
Colombo: Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s allies are planning to form a new opposition alliance, breaking away from President Maithripala Sirisena’s United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) coalition, senior leftist leaders said on Saturday.
“We are looking to form a new political front. We are having talks with different groups,” Tissa Vitharana of the Trotskyist Lanka Samasamaja Party (LSSP) said. Vitharana was a senior minister under Rajapaksa in his near decade-old regime which ended in January.
“We have to form a new front, we are against this national government arrangement,” Vasudeva Nanayakkara of another leftist party said. With the 17 August parliamentary election results and Sirisena’s decision to form a coalition government between Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP) and Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the old left have felt overlooked and ignored by Sirisena.
None of them were picked by Sirisena to fill in the national list parliamentary seat allocation which the UPFA won on 17 August. These parties played a main role in the return to politics of Rajapaksa since his defeat in January. The old left parties have been part of the UPFA since its formation in 2004 as an anti-UNP political front. The coalition ruled the country between 2004 and early this year. Vitharana and Dinesh Gunawardena, the leaders of the nationalist Mahajana Eksath Permauna (MEP) have accused Sirisena of breaking the UPFA coalition.
Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
MoreLess
First Published:29 Aug 2015, 09:08 PM IST
- Top Gainers
- Top Losers
- 52 Week High