{"id":93805,"date":"2019-10-12T04:17:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-12T11:17:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=93805"},"modified":"2019-10-12T04:17:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-12T11:17:32","slug":"the-elpitiya-election-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/10\/12\/the-elpitiya-election-victory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Elpitiya election victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em><strong data-rich-text-format-boundary=\"true\">MEDIA RELEASE Mahinda Rajapaksa <\/strong>Leader of the Opposition<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>The opposition alliance formed by the Sri\nLanka Podujana Peramuna, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the political parties\nof the Joint Opposition have scored a resounding victory&nbsp;at the Elpitiya\nPradesheeya Sabha elections. This election was held on the basis of nominations\nsubmitted at the beginning of 2018. Hence the Sri Lanka Freedom Party had\nfielded a separate list. But today, we have formed an alliance to ensure the\nvictory of one candidate at the presidential elections. The opposition alliance\nhas won all the wards in the Elpitiya Pradesheeya Sabha. As a whole the opposition\nalliance has won 69% of the valid votes cast. The UNP won only 24%. The JVP has\nnot obtained anything more than their usual percentage of votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The people of Elpitiya have with great\nforesight and integrity,&nbsp;conclusively defeated the attempt made by the\ngovernment to retain power by deceiving the people through the distribution of\nland, jobs and all manner of material inducements.&nbsp; I need not dwell on\nthe disasters that have befallen this country after January 2015. The economy\nis in a state of collapse. In the run up to the Elpitiya election, the\nDepartment of Census and Statistics released the latest data indicating that\nunemployment had increased further. The economic growth rate is now about a\nthird of what it was under my government. Businesses are struggling. The\nindebtedness of the country is at an all-time high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no external, global reason for\nthis economic downturn. The downturn that has taken place in this country after\n2015 is due entirely to political reasons.&nbsp;This situation can be remedied\nonly through politics. That is the process that has now been set in motion by\nthe people of Elpitiya. It was not only the economy that the yahapalana\ngovernment destroyed. They have destroyed the democratic system as well.&nbsp;\nThe local government elections were delayed by nearly three years. They have\nbrought about a situation where Provincial Council elections cannot be held at\nall. They went to courts and got a declared Parliamentary election halted. They\ntried their best to get the presidential elections put off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Indeed they even tried to prevent the\nElpitiya Pradesheeya Sabha election from taking place. They made every attempt\npossible to get the candidate of the opposition alliance knocked out of the\nrace even before the presidential election was held.&nbsp; This era should be\nbrought to an end. The people of Elpitiya have fired the first salvo. I request\nall supporters of the opposition alliance to&nbsp;savour this victory\npeacefully and without inconveniencing anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/strong><br>Leader of the Opposition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MEDIA RELEASE Mahinda Rajapaksa Leader of the Opposition The opposition alliance formed by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and the political parties of the Joint Opposition have scored a resounding victory&nbsp;at the Elpitiya Pradesheeya Sabha elections. This election was held on the basis of nominations submitted at the beginning of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mahinda-rajapaksa","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93805","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=93805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93805\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}