While revealing that President Ranil Wickremesinghe had called Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) to join the government collectively, SJB National Organizer Tissa Attanayake said his party had told the President to hold a general election first.
“We have told the President that a general election should be held first to find out the opinion of the people. We have told him that we will consider supporting him depending on the fresh mandate of the people,” Attanayake told a media briefing.
“The President told us to work with him collectively, but the main issue is that he is allied with the wrong people. He is with the SLPP which is responsible for the current economic crisis. This is the main reason which is stopping us from working with the President,” he said.
“At the same time we do not welcome the recent comments made by the President at the Law conference. He has said people are tired of elections and no party will secure 50 percent of the votes in future elections. We feel that the President is trying to imply that the election map of the country will be folded temporary and no elections will be held in the near future. The right thing which the President could do is to hold a referendum and seek the people’s consent to temporarily postpone elections. However, we request the President to hold any election, be it Presidential, general, provincial councils or even the local government elections without further postponements,” he added.
At the same time the SJB National Organizer said the President’s remarks may have been aimed at the court cases with regard to postponement of pending local government elections.