Sri Lanka's Opposition Leader claims impeachment has created internal rifts in government

Jan 21, Colombo: The leader of Sri Lanka's opposition and the United National Party (UNP) Ranil Wickremasinghe has claimed that although the government received a majority vote to impeach the former chief justice, the impeachment debate has created internal rifts in the government.

The opposition leader has said that despite the claims made by certain people that the impeachment process strengthened the government with the two-third majority, in reality the government was totally weakened.
Although the government claimed the impeachment was a step towards protecting democracy, even some cabinet ministers either abstained from voting or voted against the impeachment, Wickremasinghe pointed out.

Wickremasinghe said he is aware of how many ruling party parliamentarians unwillingly voted to impeach the chief justice. Some coalition partners of the government have openly opposed the impeachment and made it clear that it was not a democratic process, he noted.

He said the UNP needs to take advantage of the rift in the Rajapaksa regime to strengthen the party to go forward and bring a UNP government to power.

Wickremasinghe called on people to elect a UNP government to condemn the corruption and bring an end to the suppression by the present government.

The opposition leader pointed out that all factions of the opposition need to unite from the grassroots level to defeat the government and only the UNP can do the job.

Senior members of the party are going from village to village across the country to drum up support to build a united opposition to take on the government, he added.