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Sirisena to meet Ranil today
By Our Political Editor
President Maithripala Sirisena will today meet leaders of political parties represented in Parliament including ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in a bid to resolve the three week long deepening political crisis.
This follows a telephone call made by Mr. Wickremesinghe yesterday to President Sirisena. The meeting has been scheduled for 5 p.m. Ahead of this meeting Mr. Wickremesinghe will be meeting the constituent parties of the United National Front (UNF).
Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has also been invited for the meeting.
The meeting has been called over the Constitutional deadlock over this week’s parliamentary vote of No Confidence against Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his cabinet. President Sirisena is refusing to recognize this vote.
President Sirisena had been unable to meet them yesterday as he was in Polonnaruwa.
President Sirisena has held meetings on two different occasions this week, one with leaders of the United National Front (UNF) and the other a meeting of the government parliamentary group attended by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. At both these meetings the President asserted he would not “under any circumstances,” re-appoint Mr Wickremesinghe as Premier. He has offered the Premiership to UNP deputy leader Sajith Premadasa who has said that such a move would further complicate matters.
The immediate purpose of today’s meeting is Parliament’s adoption for a second time a No Confidence Vote against Premier Rajapaksa on Friday. The vote came at President Sirisena’s request. At Thursday night’s meeting with UNF leaders including Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, the President noted that the preamble to the motion taken up earlier has referred to gazette notifications – one on his removal of the Prime Minister, the appointment of a successor and the prorogation of Parliament.
He argued that Parliament had no power to challenge his executive actions and urged that the resolution be adopted without that preamble. He said he could then consider their request. Amidst commotion and rowdy scenes, Speaker Jayasuriya said the motion was adopted by a majority voice vote. Later, the Speaker conveyed the decision of Parliament only to be rejected by President Sirisena on the grounds that the voting was not proper. Parliament is likely to take up the matter for the third time tomorrow (Monday) when it meets in the afternoon.
Friction has also surfaced between President Sirisena and the Rajapaksa group after President’s Sirisena’s remarks at the government parliamentary group meeting. He said numbers to prove the government’s majority would have to be found by the Rajapaksa group and that he had not offered to provide them.
In what seemed a response, Premier Rajapaksa told a rally in his ancestral town of Weeraketiya, he could not be forced out unlawfully or removed unlawfully.
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