Day: 30 June 2015

The former regime’s political stalwart MP Nimal Siripala de Silva expressed ‘concern’ when he asked last week in Parliament, whether the government had a mechanism in place to prevent the LTTE from raising its head once again. The US report in 2014 stated that the ‘LTTE financial network is intact.’ In fact, it referred to the time when the regime was under the leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa. ‘It was under their very regime that claimed to have eradicated this threat once and for all,’ Minister Mangala Samaraweera told de Silva.…

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena recently dissolved parliament. The election will be held on August 17; a new parliament will gather on September 1. Yet what happens next is still far from clear. To complicate matters, Mahinda Rajapaksa could contest in the country’s upcoming parliamentary election. Rajapaksa has stated that he’d only be interested in contesting as a member of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and has indicated that he’d like to become prime minister. There’s also been talk of Rajapaksa forming a new political party, but a clear…

Leader of the Tamil National Alliance and former Trincomalee district TNA Parliamentarian R.Sampanthan said the international community has given first priority to the problems of the Tamil speaking community in Sri Lanka. Hence the Tamil people in the North and East will give vital attention when voting at the forthcoming parliamentary elections. We would have made a historical blunder if we failed in our utmost duty in this regard. He further appealed to the Tamil people to strength the TNA to capture more parliamentary seats according to the manifesto of…

Mr. Maithripala Sirisena, who contested the presidential election under swan’ symbol promising he would, like the swan that separates milk from water, take legal action against all fraudsters and the corrupt, is now involved in protecting all fraudsters and the corrupt complains the Leader of the JVP Anura Dissanayaka. He said this addressing the meeting held at Malabe on the 28th to establish the Kaduwela Electoral Council of the party. Speaking further Mr. Dissanayaka said recently, Mahinda Rajapaksa and Maithripala had met secretly to have discussions regarding forming a SLFP…

MAHINDA’s return to politics not a worry: Ven. Rathana Thera The National Council for a Better Tomorrow Chairman Ven. Athuraliye Rathana Thera said today they would not be worried if former president Mahinda Rajapaksa returned to politics by contesting at the general elections. He told a media briefing at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute that the only problem they had was the party through which Mr. Rajapaksa would contest. “It is not important if he contests or not. We have no intention of teaming up with politicians accused of being…

Country more important than party, president assures at party leaders’ meeting! Meeting a short while ago the party leaders and citizens’ activists who contributed to his victory on January 08, the president assured them that he will not betray the public mandate he received for any reason in order to protect the party, LSSP alternative group’s senior advocate Lal Wijenayake told journalists.  At this meeting, the president said firmly that whatever pressure he had to endure from SLFP seniors, he would not give the prime minister candidature, nominations or even…

Sirisena’s dissolution of Parliament, which he had promised on April 23 after 100 days in office, comes 10 months before the term of the 225-member House was to end. In the normal course, elections were due only in April 2016. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa The upcoming election to the Sri Lankan Parliament, slated for August 17, is yet another high-stakes gamble for not only President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe but also former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Sirisena’s dissolution of Parliament, which he had promised on April 23 after…

JHU in limbo after dissolution Issues policy document as an extension of President’s January election manifesto The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) is now in a dilemma on how it should contest the forthcoming Parliamentary election. Although the party had a plan to align itself with the SLFP after the passage of the 20th Amendment, the dissolution of Parliament has plunged the party into a fresh problem, informed political sources told the Daily News. With the warring factions within the SLFP negotiating to arrive at an agreement to contest together at…

Sri Lanka, a palm-fringed island in the Indian Ocean, is in the sixth year of peace. But as the country prepares for elections in August, the legacy of its long civil war still casts a shadow. The intervening years have been especially painful for the families of the thousands who disappeared in three decades of conflict and remain unaccounted for. The trauma endures in the fishing village of Mannar in the Northern Province, where most of the fighting unfolded between the Tamil rebels and the government forces. Residents say men…