UPFA still undecided over MR’s party position

Opposition Leader Nimal Siripala de Silva and UPFA General Secretary Susil Premajayantha at Thursday’s  news conference at the Opposition Leader’s office - Pic by Shehan Gunasekara 

By Chamodi Gunawaradana

The United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) on Thursday said that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa should remain in politics but it had still not decided which position he would occupy.

UPFA General Secretary Susil Premajayantha said that at present the UPFA was in the process of amalgamating supporters of President Maithripala Sirisena and former President Rajapaksa in order to strengthen the party with the objective of forming a UPFA Government after the forthcoming general elections.  

He also asserted that 14 UPFA leaders met President Sirisena on Wednesday and spoke about the UPFA’s stance on the 20th Amendment and whether to put forward a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe ahead of the forthcoming election.

“However, this decision is still in discussion. Nevertheless, as the UPFA Chairman, President Sirisena has to stand by the resolutions the party takes. At Wednesday’s meeting he had no objections to our decisions,” Premajayantha said.

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Nimal Siripala de Silva, who was also present at the news briefing, said that within four or five days the 20th Amendment would be brought to a level where it could be drafted as a bill. 

“After the necessary steps that are required concerning the 20A are taken then we will present it to Parliament as soon as possible,” he said. 

Speaking about the pending no-confidence motions the UPFA said it was planning to bring against the Government, Siripala said that although the party wanted the no-confidence motion against Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake to be tabled in Parliament during the first week that the Parliament was assembled in June, the relevant authorities had informed them that it could only be taken up in the third week of June. 

Speaking about the no-confidence motion against the PM, Siripala said: “The report presented by the three-member lawyer committee appointed by the Prime Minister to look into the Central Bank’s bond issue does not reveal any fraudulent activity by the previous regime though Wickremesinghe says it does. It is because of such things that we want to bring a no-confidence motion against him.”

Expressing his views on this report, he added that they too had read it and it had not implicated the previous Government in any illegal activity. 

“However, in this report the lawyers had mentioned that further investigations should be carried out regarding the Central Bank bond issue. Our stance on this matter is that corruption has taken place at the Central Bank after Wickremesinghe became Prime Minister,” Siripala said. 

Commenting on the CB Treasury bond issue and the investigations conducted by the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) subcommittee, Premajayantha, who is also a member of the subcommittee, said that this report would be presented after 14 days. He added that the UPFA believed that the COPE report would be more comprehensive than the report presented by the three-lawyer committee.