August 11th - Auspicious date to reveal SLPP candidate

A prominent SLPP member told Sri Lanka Mirror that the auspicious date for the revelation of the SLPP Presidential candidate is the 11th of August.

It is also reported that the inaugural SLPP convention is all set to be held at the Sugathadasa Indoor Stadium. According to the party constitution, it is scheduled to select the party leader as well.

Meanwhile, it was decided at their meeting last Thursday by the group of Joint Opposition members to hand over the selection of the opposition presidential candidate and their decision to reveal the name officially to Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapaksa.

This was officially entrusted to Mahinda Rajapaksa at the party meeting held at his official residence last Thursday.
However, there have been suggestions from various quarters that the candidate to be fielded by the opposition at the next Presidential election should be Gotabhaya Rajapaksa or Chamal Rajapaksa.

Meanwhile, there were discussions regarding Shiranthi Rajapaksa’s photo which was released to the media by Mahinda Rajapaksa’s media team.
The reason being that the media team had so far refrained from releasing any photo with Shiranthi in it, but this particular photo included Shiranthi, which gave rise to numerous speculations.

Meanwhile, the ‘Anidda’ newspaper had reported that there had been objections raised by the Gota loyalists regarding Chamal Rajapaksa’s name being proposed for Presidential candidacy and as a result it is reported that there are disputes arising within the Joint Opposition camp.

It is said that some of the Joint Opposition MPs had reprimanded those who had proposed Chamal Rajapaksa’s name while the Chamal loyalists have also come under harsh criticism over social media platforms.

When there is doubt whether Gotabhaya would be selected as the Presidential candidate, Chamal Rajapaksa’s name had been proposed by several prominent Joint Opposition members. Among them were several Tamil party members as well.
However, Vasudeva Nanayakkara had noted that he had not proposed Chamal Rajapaksa’s name for presidential candidacy with the intention of creating disputes within the group.

He expressed hope that if names of several candidates are proposed, the most suitable candidate would emerge.