Former Rajapaksa loyalists launch new party to support incumbent Lankan president in upcoming polls

Rebel leaders from the party led by the Rajapaksa family have decided to form a new outfit next week in their bid to support the incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the September 21 presidential election, it was announced on Saturday.

Preparations are underway to form the new party, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, a former Rajapaksa family loyalist, said while addressing a political gathering in the central district of Kandy earlier in the day.

Rajapaksas are one of the powerful political dynasties in Sri Lanka and their Sri Lanka People’s Front (SLPP, also known locally by its popular Sinhalese name, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna) has ruled at the Centre for over two decades.

Over 100 SLPP MPs from the over 145 elected to parliament in 2020 are now behind 75-year-old Wickremesinghe who has announced himself an independent candidate.

They have defied the party despite the SLPP naming the Rajapaksa heir Namal Rajapaksa, 38, as the party’s candidate.

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The SLPP had backed Wickremesinghe in July 2022 to elect him for the balance term of the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country and resigned after months-long street protests due to precarious economic conditions.

It was soon after mid-April 2022 when the island nation declared its first-ever sovereign default since gaining independence from Britain in 1948.

Since then, Wickremesinghe ran the government with the SLPP’s young brigade of ministers who undertook some of the major reforms in the power and energy sector to bring the country’s economy on track.

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However, the SLPP hardliners oppose Wickremesinghe’s economic reforms set in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout.

The party is particularly opposed to the policy of selling state-owned enterprises, a key element in the IMF reform programme to minimise state revenue losses.

Meanwhile, the SLPP has warned of disciplinary action against all party members who would back any candidate other than Namal Rajapaksa.