National People’s Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake will dissolve parliament the same night his victory is announced at Sri Lanka’s upcoming presidential election, Dissanayake said.
At a party event in Hambantota on Sunday June 09, Dissanayake said the NPP will win the parliamentary elections that will be held immediately after the presidential election.
The next parliament will have 120 to 130 MPs from the NPP, he added.
“We may be laughing and clapping, but what we’re doing is Sri Lanka’s biggest political transformation that will see power exchanged between the common people. The NPP is today opening up the road for talented, skilled youth in the villages to move forward in politics.
“Power must transfer to new leaders,” he said.
Dissanayake said though that the current parliament will not continue even for a day after he is elected at the presidential poll.
“In the current parliament, there are only three of us from the NPP. After we win the presidential election, we will dissolve parliament that very night. Remember that. It won’t be held for even a day.
“And after that? There are three of us now. It will surpass 120, 130. What does that mean? Those who have been kept out of parliament all this time, a massive number of children of farmers and fisher folk who came through free education will be in parliament.
“A new change,” he said.
The parliamentary election will be followed by the long delayed local government elections, he added.
Support for l Dissanayake dropped six percentage points to 39 percent in April, levelling with opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, while support for President Ranil Wickremesinghe increased three points to 13 percent in a presidential election voting intent poll.
The Sri Lanka Opinion Tracker Survey (SLOTS) conducted by the Institute for Health Policy showed that, according to its Multilevel Regression and Poststratification (MRP) provisional estimates of presidential election voting intent, National People’s Power (NPP) leader Dissanayake and main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) lader Premadasa were now neck and neck while United National Party (UNP) leader Wickremesinghe had made some gains. A generic candidate for the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) had the support of 9 percent of the people surveyed, up 1 percentage point from March