• To hold joint islandwide public meetings, FPC to sign MoU with SJB  

A number of political groups representing the Parliamentary Opposition, including the Freedom People's Congress (FPC), have planned to hold a series of joint public meetings across the country together with the main Parliamentary Opposition Party, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), from the first week of next month (January 2024), to demand elections.

Speaking to The Daily Morning, Parliamentarian representing the FPC, K.P.S. Kumarasiri said that they had discussed with several parties such as the SJB, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna-led National People's Power regarding the need to rally against the Government and President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

“We have planned to go around the country and hold joint public meetings to demand an election. These rallies will be attended by several Opposition groups such as ours. This is a programme that was launched by then-Opposition Leader and incumbent Government MP Mahinda Rajapaksa who formed a joint Opposition before 2019. In the meantime, we will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the SJB to form an alliance with them,” he said.

With the Local Government elections, which were scheduled to be held early this year (2023), having been indefinitely postponed due to the non-issuance of the required funds by the Finance Ministry and General Treasury, several parties have claimed that the President, who is also the Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies, and the Government may attempt to postpone the upcoming elections as well. 

In the wake of reports that several FPC MPs including Prof. G.L. Peiris, Dilan Perera, Dr. Nalaka Godahewa, and Prof. Channa Jayasumana were to join the SJB, Kumarasiri, on an earlier occasion, said that they were all of the view that they should get together with other Opposition political parties including the SJB, but that there was a slight division among the MPs in his group about the timing as to when they should form such an alliance.