COLOMBO : Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe finally has decided to appoint around 10 cabinet ministers during a discussion with Basil Rajapakse, Chief Organiser of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) recently (July 30) according to a close political member of Basil Rajapakse.
Basil Rajapakse’s earlier request has not been successful although the party announced of a positive feedback after the meeting with President Wickremesinghe. Party’s General Secretary and MP Sagara Kariyawasam insists that the President has to accept their request to support the real SLPPers.
Kariyawasam noted that “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 Gotabhaya 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.
August 6, 2023