In the wake of the Western and Southern Provincial Council elections,
Ranil Wickremesinghe, National Leader of the United National Party (UNP) made an appeal to all opposition parties to forge a common front to topple the incumbent government. But then the first ‘gunfire’
(wedi muraya) was fired by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). Instead of issuing an unqualified or at least a qualified acceptance of the invitation, it came in the form of a ‘spoke in the wheel’, causing at least a temporary halt to the turning of the wheel. If it did not decelerate the momentum, it certainly brought to light the serious sense of incredulity in which the present leader of the UNP is held by his own colleagues in the so-called ‘common opposition’.
“I’m not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.” - Adlai E. Stevenson