Picture : Twitter / ANI
Sri Lanka’s main Opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya said that it has rejected an offer by embattled President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to its leader Sajith Premadasa to head an interim government, amid continued political uncertainty in the country which is now under a state of emergency.
“Our leader refused to accept the president’s offer,” Tissa Attanayake, the national organiser for SJB told reporters.
As per PTI report, Rajapaksa had called over the telephone both Premadasa and Harsha de Silva, the SJB economic guru, on the prospect of forming an interim government which had been a demand endorsed by the powerful Buddhist clergy as well as the group which had broken away from the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna coalition.
The SJB announced on Saturday that they would back the proposal from the lawyers’ body BASL which had advocated for the setting up of an interim government for a period of 18 months with a move to abolish the presidential system of governance.
They had also called for the repealing of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution which conferred unfettered powers to Rajapaksa in 2020.
