Last evening, the Joint Opposition alliance met for crisis talks, to decide on how to proceed with Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s candidacy in face of the fresh litigation.

It remains unclear whether the SLPP will need to ensure it has a ‘contingency candidate’ waiting in the wings, in the event the case goes against Rajapaksa, sources told Daily FT.

The Gotabaya Rajapaksa campaign also published copies of his dual citizenship certificate that is now under scrutiny in the second highest court of the land, on Twitter, but the documents raised more questions than they answered.

The certificate first published by SLPP member Kanchana Wijesekera bore the Certificate Number 15305, a number the CID has already told the Chief Magistrate’s Court in a B report filed last Thursday, is assigned to another person. The CID’s 26 September B report seen by Daily FT also contains a copy of the dual citizenship certificate submitted to the Registration of Persons Department in October 2016, which bears the certificate number 15305A.

In a speech addressing an unofficial campaign event yesterday, even as his party scrambled to deal with the fresh legal crisis, the former Defence Secretary said his dual citizenship certificate which had not been a problem for 15 years was being touted as a forgery now. “Why should I forge a certificate? My brother was President,” Rajapaksa said, insisting that the document being challenged in the Court of Appeal was authentic.

SLPP Chairman G.L. Peiris denounced the move to scuttle Rajapaksa’s candidacy by using false legal arguments.

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