Sri Lankan President Wickremesinghe's party to join hands with Rajapaksa's SLPP in local body polls

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghes United National Party UNP will join hands with the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna SLPP party led by the powerful Rajapaksa family in the upcoming local body elections.

Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party (UNP) will join hands with the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party led by the powerful Rajapaksa family in the upcoming local body elections. UNP General Secretary Palitha Range Bandara said the decision was made on Monday after a meeting of senior leaders from the two parties. The elections, which were scheduled to be held last year, got postponed due to the economic crisis. "We will contest under our elephant symbol and their (SLPP's) lotus symbol in certain areas, while there will also be a common symbol in some areas," Bandara said. The nominations for the local body elections will be open from January 18 to January 21, while the date for the election will be announced later, officials said. The elections to appoint members for the 340 local councils in Sri Lanka was announced, amid calls for its postponement due to the ongoing economic crisis. According to officials, a whopping SLR 10 billion is required to conduct the elections across the cash-strapped nation. President Wickremesinghe on Monday instructed his ministries to slash five per cent of their estimated expenditure allocated in this year's Budget as Sri Lanka's Treasury was facing an acute shortage of funds, exacerbating fears that the cash-strapped country's economic crisis could be even worse than previously anticipated. The SLPP controls the majority of the councils, having won during the election held four years ago. Incidentally, Wickremesinghe succeeded Gotabaya Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka's president in July last year, with a majority of SLPP lawmakers backing him in the parliamentary vote. Sri Lanka is in the midst of its worst economic crisis since its independence from Great Britain in 1948, triggered by a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves. In April last year, Sri Lanka declared its international debt default due to the forex crisis. Due to the forex shortage, Sri Lanka was unable to afford key imports, including fuel, fertilisers and medicines, leading to serpentine queues.

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