{"id":77394,"date":"2018-05-15T22:20:13","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T04:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=77394"},"modified":"2018-05-15T15:03:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T22:03:18","slug":"sri-lankas-ex-defence-chief-launches-election-bid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/05\/15\/sri-lankas-ex-defence-chief-launches-election-bid\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s ex-defence chief launches election bid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
\n

Former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has unofficially launched his bid to run for the presidency at the 2019 elections with a ceremony at the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo.<\/p>\n

Political sources said Rajapaksa had invited his three politically active brothers as guests of what he called the launch his 2030 vision for Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

In a 25-minute address in Sinhala, the former defence chief spoke of Sri Lanka needing a socialist, market-economy\u201d while protecting the sovereignty and the culture of the island.<\/p>\n

He also spoke of economic reforms and warned that a window of opportunity\u201d will not be open for ever. He lamented that Sri Lanka was still dependent on traditional exports and lacked high-value added industrial exports.<\/p>\n

\"Sri<\/p>\n

The meeting came in the backdrop of an internal power struggle within the Rajapaksa family where younger brother Basil had hoped to be the presidential candidate in 2019.<\/p>\n

Basil established his credentials by leading his newly formed SLPP to victory at the February local elections. In contrast, Gotabhaya was completely out of the election campaign of the SLPP.<\/p>\n

Several allies of the SLFP, including Vasudeva Nanayakkara, has asked former president Rajapaksa\u2019s eldest brother Chamal to be a compromise candidate.<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear if the charismatic former president would support Chamal over Gotabhaya or Basil, but insiders say he was also keen on making a return to power.<\/p>\n

Mahinda Rajapaksa was banking on the national unity government changing the constitution and reverting the country to a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy so that he could return as an executive prime minister.<\/p>\n

Gotabhaya has a legal hurdle if he wants to enter public life. Under the 19th amendment, no dual-citizen of Sri Lanka can contest elections. However, he could renounce his US citizenship to enter local politics. (Economynext<\/strong>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy NewsIn.Asia Former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa has unofficially launched his bid to run for the presidency at the 2019 elections with a ceremony at the Shangri-La hotel in Colombo. Political sources said Rajapaksa had invited his three politically active brothers as guests of what he called the launch his 2030 vision for Sri Lanka. […]<\/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-77394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77394","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=77394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}