Sri Lanka JO questions unity government's status

Mahinda Rajapaksa-backed Joint Opposition today questioned the current status of the unity government in Sri Lanka which has been plunged into an unprecedented political crisis after the local council polls in which the former president's new party registered a landslide victory.
Joint Opposition MP Dullas Alahapperuma asked Speaker Karu Jayasuriya if the unity government was still in power. The Speaker informed the MP that he had not been informed of any change in the arrangement.
Rajapaksa's new party Sri Lanka People's Party (SLPP) defeated President Sirisena's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP), winning 225 councils or two-thirds of the 340 councils in the last week's polls.

The UNP won only 41 councils while the SLFP was a distant third with just 11 in the first electoral test of the unity government headed by Sirisena.
While Rajapaksa's SLPP swept the polls in a massive wave of support to the former strongman, Sirisena's SLFP suffered its worst drubbing with just 13 per cent of the vote.
Alahapperuma's query was based on the expiration of the national government agreement between the two parties on December 31, 2017.

According to political analysts, it remains very unlikely to be renewed.
The issue was raised in the backdrop of the ongoing power struggle between Sirisena and Wickremesinghe.

The President had asked his main backer in his victorious 2015 campaign Wickremesinghe to resign as Prime Minister following last week's electoral defeat of both by Rajapaksa.
Sirisena claims that his party ministers were not willing to work with Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister and called for his resignation
Wickremesinghe refused to quit, saying he commanded the majority.
Sirisena's attempt to get 113 seats to oust Wickremesinghe has also failed. The tussle has plunged the island into an unprecedented political crisis.
Rajapaksa's Joint Opposition has called for an immediate parliamentary election to end the impasse. The election is officially due in August 2020.