{"id":72292,"date":"2017-11-29T22:19:39","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T04:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=72292"},"modified":"2017-11-29T15:13:08","modified_gmt":"2017-11-29T22:13:08","slug":"to-jointly-contest-polls-jo-gives-slfp-ultimatum-vote-against-budget-on-9-dec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/11\/29\/to-jointly-contest-polls-jo-gives-slfp-ultimatum-vote-against-budget-on-9-dec\/","title":{"rendered":"To jointly Contest polls JO gives SLFP ultimatum Vote against Budget on 9 Dec"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong>By Gagani Weerakoon\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The Joint Opposition, led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, yesterday decided to issue an ultimatum to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, led by President Maithripala Sirisena, for the two parties to come together at the Local Government Polls to be held next year.<\/p>\n<p>The JO group, which met in a committee room at the Parliament Complex last afternoon, under the patronage of MP Rajapaksa, decided to demand that the SLFP should show their resolve by casting the final vote, on 9 December, against the Budget 2018.<br \/>\nIf not, the JO will go its own way at the upcoming Local Government polls.<\/p>\n<p>This has given rise to speculation that depending on the response to this demand, the negotiations being conducted between these two factions of the SLFP,&#8230;&#8230;by two subcommittees appointed by the two parties, will also come to an end.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was decided that there is no point in dragging discussions between the two factions if they do not show any commitment. We are confident already in contesting alone and if the SLFP does not vote against Budget on 9 December, we will go ahead under the Lotus Bud and contest under Sri Lanka Podujana Party banner. Our supporters at grassroots do not encourage any further discussions with no end at the sight,&#8221; MP Gamini Lokuge told the media after the meeting.<\/p>\n<p>If the SLFP does vote against the Budget, it will spell the end of the Unity Government which will then precipitate a major political crisis. According to Lokuge, the group led by the former President has also informed their committee members, C.B. Ratnayaka, Pavithra Devi Wanniarachchi and Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena to discuss this demand with Ministers Nimal Siripala de Silva, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa and Lasantha Alagiyawanna who represent the Maithri faction, last evening.<\/p>\n<p>The main demand from the joint opposition to SLFP, in order to come to an agreement on contesting future elections together, was to leave the UNP-led Government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Gagani Weerakoon\u00a0Courtesy Ceylon Today The Joint Opposition, led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, yesterday decided to issue an ultimatum to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, led by President Maithripala Sirisena, for the two parties to come together at the Local Government Polls to be held next year. The JO group, which met in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72292","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=72292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}