Namal Rajapaksa, the 38-year-old scion of the Rajapaksa clan, was on Wednesday nominated as the SLPP candidate for the presidential election, officially ending the Rajapaksa family’s support for incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Sagar Kariyawasam, general secretary of the Sri Lanka People’s Front (SLPP, also known locally by its popular Sinhala name Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna), announced the candidacy of the younger Rajapaksa at a ceremony held at the party headquarters on Wednesday morning.
Namal’s entry into the fray has made the election a four-cornered contest. Besides him, President Wickremesinghe, main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and Marxist JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake are already in the fray.
The Rajapaksa’s – Mahinda, Basil and Gotabaya – played a key role in this Wickremesinghe will win the parliamentary elections in July 2022 To take over the remainder of Gotabaya’s term.
This was immediately followed by unprecedented growth In mid-April 2022 when the island nation declared its first sovereign default It was the biggest political development since independence from Britain in 1948 and was fuelled by local unrest over inflation and other economic stresses that forced Gotabaya out of power.
Wednesday’s development comes just days after the SLPP lost nearly 100 of its MPs to Wickremesinghe when he announced his candidacy as an independent candidate.
Those MPs have denounced their party’s decision to sideline Wickremesinghe, but the SLPP in turn has vowed disciplinary action against those who supported Wickremesinghe in defiance of the party’s decision.
The party took a late decision on Namal. According to sources, the preferred candidate, businessman Dhammika Perera, told the party on Tuesday that he was unable to contest due to personal reasons.