by Yohan Perera in Daily Mirror online, Apr 16, 2023 at 11:21 pm
President Ranil Wickremesinghe is expected to make a fresh call for a national government on April 25 when Parliament takes up the debate on the IMF extended Fund Facility (EFF) agreement.
Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) MP Mano Ganesan told Daily Mirror that President had informed him and MP Rauff Hakeem that he would make a fresh call on that day to all opposition MPs to extend support for the idea.
MP Ganesan told Daily Mirror that although the President said he would make the call when Parliament meets, he did not extend such an invitation when we met him.
Earlier, the MP said he together with MP Rauff Hakeem initiated an effort to bring the UNP and SJB under one umbrella, but they had to abandon the idea since the SJB leadership did not respond.
“However the subject of “premiership” never popped up in our discussion. All media reports claiming that the President had sent messages to opposition leader Sajith Premadasa offering him the Premiership were false and baseless,” he added.
https://www.dailymirror.lk/top_story/President-to-call-for-a-national-government/155-257639
Cabinet Reshuffle: Need more Ministries for ‘real SLPPers’ : Kariyawasam
by Buddhika Samaraweera in The Morning, Apr 17, 2023
The ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) is expecting President Ranil Wickremesinghe to appoint a new Cabinet of Ministers with more Ministries being given to “real SLPPers”, according to the Party’s General Secretary and MP Sagara Kariyawasam.
It was recently reported that SLPP National Organiser Basil Rajapaksa had requested Wickremesinghe that some more Ministerial posts be given to SLPP MPs.
When The Daily Morning contacted Kariyawasam and queried about the situation with regard to the said request, he said: “We made that request at the very beginning and it is still valid. I do not see any reason as to why it should become invalid. From the beginning, our request to the President was to appoint a new Cabinet with more Ministries being given to real SLPPers, but he prefers to go with the final Cabinet of former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. That does not mean that our request is invalid.”
He also said that the request has however not been fulfilled due to “fair” reasons that Wickremesinghe is having, and that the SLPP has a sound understanding of the situation.
“We genuinely made that request, but it has not been fulfilled yet. We understand that the President is having fair reasons. There was a serious destabilisation in the country and we do not want to face such a situation again,” added Kariyawasam.
Wickremesinghe, who entered Parliament through the National List, was initially functioning as an Opposition MP. However, in mid-2022 he was appointed as the Prime Minister in the face of massive protests against then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the SLPP led Government.
He was thereafter elected as the President with the majority support of the SLPP in a parliamentary vote held following the resignation of Rajapaksa from the presidency in July 2022.
Wickremesinghe did not dissolve the Cabinet appointed by his predecessor and instead made some changes to it from time to time.
https://www.themorning.lk/articles/NArqIKn9x7jZFOfDqP31
