{"id":72113,"date":"2017-11-27T16:01:21","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T23:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=72113"},"modified":"2017-11-27T16:01:21","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T23:01:21","slug":"if-mahinda-joins-sirisena-again-wimal-and-udaya-must-contest-together-under-a-separate-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/11\/27\/if-mahinda-joins-sirisena-again-wimal-and-udaya-must-contest-together-under-a-separate-party\/","title":{"rendered":"If Mahinda Joins Sirisena Again, Wimal and Udaya Must Contest Together Under a Separate Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Sirisena again uses blackmail to cow down Mahinda and clan to contest under his party. Unless Rajapaksas agree, a few of them will be in prison. Sirisena meticulously planned this for a long time. He postponed LG and PC elections until investigations completed and he has a stick against the Rajapaksas. Then he had to again postpone LG elections to have enough time to negotiate with the Rajapaksas. Their negotiation happens on Monday 27 between panels agreed by them. Sirisena camp will be represented by Nimal Siripala, Lasantha and Anura Priyadarshana while Mahinda camp will be represented by CB Rathnayake, Mahinda Abeywardhana and Pavithra.<\/p>\n

Conditions put forward by the Mahinda camp are all political and nothing of national importance! This is a shame. Instead, the conditions should have been prevention of selling state assets, a halt to the new constitution and a complete stoppage of ETCA.<\/p>\n

Sirisena is politically desperate as his SLFP will fall to the fourth place if contest alone. Mahinda camp is desperate on personal security. Shiranthi simply cannot spend a day behind bars and Gotabaya has plenty of enemies who will harass him in prison. The proposed marriage between them is out of personal desperation. It has no national worth.<\/p>\n

This is a golden opportunity for Weerawansa and Gammanpila to form one unified front and contest the LG election. They can have a sizable number of councillors who will hold the balance of power. They can be the kingmakers of the PC elections, the next presidential election and the parliamentary election. Change of electorates favours Wimal and Udaya.<\/p>\n

Sirisena surely anticipated this possibility too. That\u2019s why he attempted to silence Wimal and Udaya early. They were both imprisoned, harassed and even their family members were harassed (for the first time in this country) as part of a political witch hunt. Unfortunately for Sirisena, it failed to deter them. Sirisena\u2019s plan of attack is to neutralize or win over all those around Rajapaksas, isolate the former ruling clan and strike at the most opportune time.<\/p>\n

If Mahinda and Sirisena fail to come to an agreement, Wimal and Udaya have another opportunity \u2013 to join Sirisena! Although this sounds ironic, it is the next best thing. Already NFF and SLPP are at loggerheads over the number of NFF candidates within the SLPP. If NFF can contest with the SLFP, voters will pick NFF candidates for their preference votes as SLFP is so unpopular. This will give NFF a commanding position at the expense of the SLFP.<\/p>\n

Therefore, Wimal and Udaya have a golden opportunity to propel Sri Lanka in the right direction under both conditions. They must grab this opportunity. Voters desperately seek a new political front as they are fed up of old and repeatedly recycled political clans. Voters are also disgusted with political double games played by the JO. If it opposes Sirisena, it must not negotiate with him. If it is against Indian interference, its leaders must not creep into India House at night. If it opposes the confederated constitution, its members must not be part of the crime. If it opposes anti-national bills, JO leaders must lead the charge within parliament and vote against them. Voters cannot be fooled forever with self-sympathy. Voters must feel sympathy for themselves!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara Sirisena again uses blackmail to cow down Mahinda and clan to contest under his party. Unless Rajapaksas agree, a few of them will be in prison. Sirisena meticulously planned this for a long time. He postponed LG and PC elections until investigations completed and he has a stick against the Rajapaksas. Then he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72113","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=72113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}