{"id":83279,"date":"2018-11-15T13:09:44","date_gmt":"2018-11-15T20:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=83279"},"modified":"2018-11-15T13:09:44","modified_gmt":"2018-11-15T20:09:44","slug":"sri-lankas-unp-says-ready-for-elections-but-only-if-held-legally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/11\/15\/sri-lankas-unp-says-ready-for-elections-but-only-if-held-legally\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka\u2019s UNP says ready for elections, but only if held legally"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"social-sharethis-post\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy NewsIn.Asia<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<div class=\"social-sharethis-post\">Colombo, Nov 15 (newsin.asia) \u2013 Sri Lanka\u2019s ousted Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, on Thursday reiterated that his party held a majority in Parliament as a mass political demonstration led by his party got underway in capital Colombo.<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>Addressing the rally, Wickremesinghe said that a no confidence motion on Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse which was presented in Parliament on Wednesday had been passed by a majority and called on President Maithripala Sirisena to accept the results declared by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya.<\/p>\n<p>Wickremesinghe said his party was ready to face a parliamentary election but only if it was held according to the country\u2019s Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>We will protect out Parliament. We are not scarred to hold an election. We are ready to hold\u00a0 Presidential and a General Election both, but only if its held legally,\u201d Wickremesinghe said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" title=\"Sri Lanka\u2019s UNP says ready for elections, but only if held legally\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/newsin.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/IMG_9461.jpg?fit=701%2C467&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"Sri Lanka\u2019s UNP says ready for elections, but only if held legally\" width=\"561\" height=\"374\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Thousands of people attended the rally held on Thursday afternoon under tight security with police unable to confirm an exact number.<\/p>\n<p>Security was heightened in several areas in Colombo and several roads were cordoned off as a result of the demonstration.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier on Thursday, delivering a special statement in Parliament Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse called for all parties to agree to hold a parliamentary election in order to resolve the weeks long political crisis.<\/p>\n<p>He said true democracy would only prevail if the public were given a mandate to decide their future government.<\/p>\n<div>Sri Lanka has been embroiled in a severe political turmoil, when on Oct 26, President Maithripala Sirisena surprisingly sacked his cabinet and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed former president Mahinda Rajapakse to the post and appointed a new caretaker government.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy NewsIn.Asia Colombo, Nov 15 (newsin.asia) \u2013 Sri Lanka\u2019s ousted Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, on Thursday reiterated that his party held a majority in Parliament as a mass political demonstration led by his party got underway in capital Colombo. Addressing the rally, Wickremesinghe said that a no confidence motion on Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse which [&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-83279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83279","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=83279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}