Oil and water don’t mix: UNP

• Eran dismisses prospect of President joining forces with Rajapaksa camp
• Says President Sirisena put his life on the line to defeat Mahinda

Unification between the SLFP’s Mahinda and Maithripala camps would be beneficial to the UNP electorally, but the prospect remains highly unlikely, UNP lawmaker Eran Wickramaratne said.

Addressing a news conference on Sunday, the UNP MP said if the Mahinda faction joined the SLFP the focus would return to the way the Rajapaksa regime governed the country in the recent past.

Wickramaratne was confident however that President Maithripala Sirisena would never join forces politically with the ousted President Rajapaksa.

“Oil and water don’t mix,” the UNP legislator told reporters.

“President Sirisena put his life on the line when he stepped out of the Rajapaksa Government to make a change,” Wickramaratne argued. 

“So I don’t think he will ever join forces with the Rajapaksa camp,” he added.

“If such a thing does happen, then it will be abundantly clear to the country as to what it must do at the election,” the UNP MP said.