{"id":82354,"date":"2018-10-26T14:59:04","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T20:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=82354"},"modified":"2018-10-26T07:58:20","modified_gmt":"2018-10-26T14:58:20","slug":"mahinda-rajapaksa-sworn-in-as-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/10\/26\/mahinda-rajapaksa-sworn-in-as-prime-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Mahinda Rajapaksa sworn in as Prime Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Adaderana<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been sworn in as the Prime Minister before President Maithripala Sirisena, a short while ago.<\/p>\n<p>The unexpected announcement comes just minutes after the United People\u2019s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) decided to withdraw from the unity government.<\/p>\n<p>UPFA General Secretary Mahinda Amaraweera, speaking to Ada Derana, stated that the Speaker of Parliament has been notified of the decision in writing.<\/p>\n<p>President Maithripala Sirisena\u2019s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the main constituent party of the UPFA, and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s United National Party (UNP) had formed a unity government in August 2015 following the general election.<\/p>\n<p>The coalition had grown increasingly strained in recent months. Both coalition partners suffered heavy defeats in local elections in February, and Sirisena loyalists backed a no-confidence motion in April against the prime minister, who survived after a majority of legislators voted to support his coalition government.<\/p>\n<div id=\"fb-root\" class=\" fb_reset\">\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fb-video fb_iframe_widget fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop\" data-href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NewsfirstSL\/videos\/313874576106503\/\" data-width=\"500\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"\" title=\"fb:video Facebook Social Plugin\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/v3.2\/plugins\/video.php?app_id=&amp;channel=https%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2Fr%2FetLyasxFx7o.js%3Fversion%3D42%23cb%3Df2fcef0063af028%26domain%3Dlankacnews.com%26origin%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flankacnews.com%252Ff3bc2dfb67d1fbc%26relation%3Dparent.parent&amp;container_width=749&amp;href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FNewsfirstSL%2Fvideos%2F313874576106503%2F&amp;locale=de_DE&amp;sdk=joey&amp;width=500\" name=\"f1ecc71fb35c564\" width=\"500px\" height=\"1000px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div class=\"views\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Adaderana Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been sworn in as the Prime Minister before President Maithripala Sirisena, a short while ago. The unexpected announcement comes just minutes after the United People\u2019s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) decided to withdraw from the unity government. UPFA General Secretary Mahinda Amaraweera, speaking to Ada Derana, stated that the Speaker [&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-82354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82354","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=82354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}