report in Economy Next online, Aug 17, 2023 at 1:33 pm
Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power (NPP), an opposition alliance dominated by the leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has rejected calls for an alliance with other opposition parties.
JVP frontliner K D Lal Kantha said speaking at an event on Wednesday August 16 that his party does not want to form alliances with what he called “rotting” parties.
“We’re getting suggestions these days, asking we can team up with the SJB or with Dullas or with this one or that one to kick Ranil out. No, we can’t,” he said.
Lal Kantha was referring to the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and former minister turned “independent” MP Dullas Alahapperuma, among others.
“You can’t do this by forming an alliance with rotting parties. So there will be no such alliances,” he declared.
Lal Kantha’s statement comes in the wake of an opinion survey for July that showed NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake has seen a dip in his net favourability rating with opposition and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa making a marginal gain while President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s rating stayed static.
A Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) polling by the Institute for Health Policy (IHP) showed that the net favourability rating of Dissanayake fell 15 points to -44 points in July while Premadasa’s favourability rating increased 4 points to -44 points. President Wickremasinghe’s favourability rating remained the same (-52) .
Favourability estimates for each month are based on 100–400 interviews conducted during that month and during a few weeks before and afterwards to ensure a minimum set of responses, the IHP said in a statement. The July 2023 estimates are based on 367 (Premadasa), 309 (Dissanayake), 367 (Wickremasinghe), and 154 (former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa) interviews.
“We have noted that some members of the public misunderstand media reporting of these numbers. Negative scores, i.e., a net favourability rating of less than zero, mean that the individual or institution is unpopular. Only positive scores, i.e., net favourability is more than zero, mean that the individual or institution is popular on average,” the IHP said.
A spokesperson for IHP, explained that SLOTS asks if respondents have a favourable or unfavourable opinion for a list of politicians. The list of politicians is not limited to Dissanayek, Premadasa, Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa but is randomised and respondents are asked only about a few politicians to reduce the burden on the respondents. All respondents are not asked about all the politicians tracked by SLOTS. Therefore sample size differs for each politician for each month, the spokesperson said.
We also vary the probabilities that specific politicians are asked about to reflect relative priority, they added.
https://economynext.com/sri-lankas-npp-has-no-plans-to-team-up-with-rotting-parties-lal-kantha-128477/
