{"id":45347,"date":"2015-07-08T17:28:07","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T23:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=45347"},"modified":"2015-07-08T00:21:22","modified_gmt":"2015-07-08T07:21:22","slug":"if-upfa-nomination-foils-mahinda-prepared-to-contest-through-budding-flower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/07\/08\/if-upfa-nomination-foils-mahinda-prepared-to-contest-through-budding-flower\/","title":{"rendered":"UPFA nomination foils; Mahinda preparing to contest through \u2018budding flower\u2019???"},"content":{"rendered":"

Latest Hot News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

It is reported that the\u00a0former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is now unable to contest the upcoming General Election under the UPFA due to some restrictions imposed and failure of\u00a0\u00a0Mahinda-Maithri collaboration, Rajapaksa is now planning\u00a0to contest under the Our Sri Lanka Freedom Front (Ape Sri Lanka Nidahas Peramuna) with the symbol of a budding flower.<\/p>\n

The party which was formerly named Sri Lanka National Front with the symbol cricket bat recently changed its name to \u2018Ape Sri Lanka Nidahas Peramuna\u2019 and symbol to a budding flower.<\/p>\n

Although the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was granted nominations from the UPFA, it has been revealed that the President has imposed several conditions on Rajapaksa contesting the upcoming general election. One specific condition states that Rajapakse will not, under any condition, be appointed Prime Minister. In addition MR was limited to only contesting in the Hambantota District electorate. The most important condition is \u00a0that should Rajapaksa be indicted of charges by any international or local tribunal, he would have to immediately vacate his seat as an MP, if he is elected into a seat, paying way for Western power to punish him for defeating LTTE terrorists.<\/p>\n

A release was recently published with the signature of UPFA General Secretary Susil Premajayantha that President Maithripala Sirisena has agreed to give former President Mahinda Rajapaksa nomination through the UPFA without any pre conditions.<\/p>\n

However speculation was rife that the release had been issued arbitrarily by Premajantha without the explicit consent of President Maithripala Sirisena. A statement to this effect was published under a Facebook page that claimed to be of former MP Arjuna Ranatunga who had attributed it to former President Chandrika Bandaranayake Kumaratunga. However when contacted by Ada Derana Ranatunga claimed that the Facebook page for a bogus one.<\/p>\n

Regardless political analysts state that with the majority of the SLFP Central Committee backing affording nominations to Rajapaksa and the faction led by Kumaratunga maintaining strongly that nominations should be withheld, a split in the SLFP is imminent.<\/p>\n

Incidentally due to this political uncertainty the next rally in the series \u2018Stand up with Mahinda\u2019 scheduled to be held in Anuradhapura on July 9 has been cancelled. This rally was slotted to officially kick off the election propaganda campaign.<\/p>\n

In this context President Maithripala Sirisena said that he is not prepared to betray the peoples\u2019 revolution that began on January 8.<\/p>\n

Rights after the decision to afford nomination for Rajapaksa, Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said that the Jathika Hela Urumaya will depart from the United People\u2019s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and will contest under a new front at the forthcoming general election.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile SLFP Treasurer and Minister S.B. Nawinne announced that he will join the United National Party (UNP) and contest the upcoming General Election from the UNP ticket. Media reports claim that Minister Arjuna Ranatunga is also holding talks with UNP officials to form a Front under the UNP.<\/p>\n

Due to these circumstances if there is a breakdown in the Mahinda-Maithri collaboration those who are backing the former President is prepared to contest under the budding flower symbo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Latest Hot News It is reported that the\u00a0former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is now unable to contest the upcoming General Election under the UPFA due to some restrictions imposed and failure of\u00a0\u00a0Mahinda-Maithri collaboration, Rajapaksa is now planning\u00a0to contest under the Our Sri Lanka Freedom Front (Ape Sri Lanka Nidahas Peramuna) with the symbol of a budding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}