President Gives Another Assurance To Continue With RW As PM: Karu Becomes 'Man Of The Match' After Last Night's Talks

February 19, 2018

Although the political situation is still tumultuous in the country, President Maithripala Sirisena has confirmed that he is willing to continue with Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister of his government. 

At a discussion at the President's residence in Colombo last night, President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe have agreed to complete reforms in the government within a period of three months. 

However, President Sirisena gave similar assurances to the UNP a few times over the past week, he had no qualms about going back on his works whenever he had a meeting with the UPFA group. 

Therefore, it is still not clear whether this assurance too will be short-lived like the previous ones. 

However, it is also learnt that the proposed Cabinet reshuffle will take place on Wednesday or Thursday, if the current cessation of hostilities between the President and the Prime Minister continues. 

Informed political sources said Speaker Karu Jayasuriya was instrumental in ironing out differences between the President and the Prime Minister and guiding everyone towards a solution, last night. 

"Had Karu taken a different stance, the situation would have been much worse. He had truly acted like a statesman yesterday," a UNP Minister closely to the Prime Minister told Asian Mirror this morning, describing Jayasuriya as the 'man of the match' at the moment. 

He sad jayasuriya's conduct yesterday was praised by many UNP MPs who were previously 'skeptical' of Jayasuriya's role in the current crisis. 

"That suspicion was created by a private media network and some elements who project themselves as close associates of Jayasuriya. They were attempting to create a power struggle between the Prime Minister and the Speaker within the party. For a moment, it looked as if they managed to get Jayasuriya on the wrong track. Nevertheless, the Speaker clearly demonstrated yesterday that he's a mature politician " he said.

Asian Mirror learns that it was Jayasuriya who was first invited for a meeting by the President's Office yesterday. At that point, Jayasuriya had stated that he would only come for the meeting with Prime Minster Wickremesinghe.