Sri Lanka's ruling coalition faces rift

Sri Lanka's ruling coalition faced a rift on Thursday with the two main parties making accusations against each other.

The rift was mainly over the failure by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to back key constitutional reforms in Parliament while the United National Party (UNP) wants the reforms approved soon.

President Maithripala Sirisena is the chairman of the SLFP and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the leader of the UNP.

While Sirisena is backing the reforms his party has raised some concerns, resulting in a delay, even as the new government completes 100 days in office on Thursday.

Deputy Foreign Minister and UNP legislator Ajith Perera said that the UNP supported Sirisena as president at elections in January to get constitutional reforms passed in Parliament.

Perera said that if the president, who is the SLFP chairman, is unable to get his party to back the reforms by next week then he must dissolve Parliament and seek a mandate from the people for a new government.

The UNP MP said that the president was given a mandate by the people to implement the 19th amendment to the constitution and so there is no alternative than to dissolve Parliament if he cannot achieve that.

Meanwhile, the SLFP said that the new government has failed to achieve most of what it promised during the 100 days in office.

SLFP General Secretary Anura Priyadharshana Yapa also accused the government of hunting some opposition members through investigations on corruption, which he says will harm the SLFP and the party leaders. Endi