A heated debate had broken out in the Central Committee meeting of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka due to a proposal that the party should support President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the next presidential election.

The General Secretary of the party DEW Gunasekera has made this proposal on the Central Committee (CC) meeting on Sunday, November 9. Member of the CC of CPSL Raja Uswatakeyiyava said that the proposal was passed with a majority.

While there were 26 votes for the proposal, 14 votes were against. One member reportedly abstained from voting.

Those who opposed the proposal had severely criticized the president for preparing for a premature presidential election, with no regard to the proposal by the CPSL that the government should abolish the Executive Presidency.

This situation has compelled some members of the party to support the Movement for a Just Society led by Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera. The movement has been campaigning with the goal of forcing the government to abolish Executive Presidency for some time.

This development came in the wake of the controversy where the Communist Party of Sri Lanka withholding all the copies of the latest edition of ‘Aththa’ newspaper without releasing them to the market. This came as a result of the internal dispute of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka which is one of the oldest political parties in the country.

The ‘seized’ copies of Aththa newspaper were stored inside a room at the Communist Party headquarters. 

it is also learnt that Editor-in-Chief of the Aththa newspaper, Dr. Michael Fernando is to resign from him position in protest of the incident.