Sri Lanka President Maithripala Sirisena has openly admitted that his Prime Minister appointee Mahinda Rajapaksa has attempted to bribe parliamentarians to show majority in the House and said that the current crisis is a result of his failure to gather 113 MPs.
In an interview with Daily Mirror, President Sirisena said he believes that Mahinda Rajapaksa couldn’t show majority because MPs demanded millions as high as Rs. 500 million to crossover.
“I heard some bargained themselves for sums as high as Rs 500 million. Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa could not gather the majority because of such high price tags quoted by the MPs, if not for that, he could have gotten the majority,” the President said.
The President said the current political crisis was due to Rajapaksa’s failure to show majority.
“If Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa could show the majority of 113, this problem would not have been dragged for one and half months and there won’t be any political crisis,” he said.
The President assured that the Supreme Court’s decision on the petitions against the dissolution of parliament will resolve the political crisis.
If the court ruling agrees with his decision to dissolve parliament, elections can be held and the problem will be solved.
If the court decides that the parliament cannot be dissolved then he has to let the majority of the parliament to decide on a government with a prime minister he agrees to appoint, the President said.
However, President Sirisena once again reiterated that he will not appoint UNP leader and ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister.
Courtesy: Colombo Page
