President-Prime Minister hold fresh round of talks

By Skandha Gunasekara

The No-Confidence motion challenge to the Government reached its climax yesterday with the President Maithripala Sirisena calling on the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP to present the way forward today if they are confident of winning the Wednesday’s Joint Opposition’s No Confidence Motion.

The outcome follows a high level meeting yesterday between the President and the Premier along with UNP Ministers yesterday.

According to well-informed sources, President had requested Prime Minister and the UNP to come up with an action plan and present it to by 9.30 am today (3 April).

All UNP Cabinet Ministers were present at the talks held late last evening at the President’s official residence.

Sources revealed that the President is likely to hold a discussion with the SLFP, soon after today’s weekly meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers to update about UNP’s agenda.  

Some analysts speculated that the President may propose that the SLFP MPs decide for themselves their stance regarding the No-Confidence motion, if he is not content with the action plan presented by the Prime Minister and the UNP. 

Earlier on in the day, a discussion was held between the Prime Minister, UNP Parliamentarians and the Party leaders of the United National Front at Temple Trees. 

The meeting, which took place around 3.00pm yesterday, resulted in the United National Front unanimously pledging their support to the Prime Minister and defeating the No-Confidence motion.