{"id":36999,"date":"2015-01-08T23:52:02","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T04:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=36999"},"modified":"2015-01-08T23:53:25","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T04:53:25","slug":"mahinda-telephones-maithripala-and-concedes-defeat-before-full-result-is-announcedleaves-temple-treesafter-meeting-with-ranil-to-discuss-smooth-transition-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=36999","title":{"rendered":"Mahinda Telephones Maithripala and Concedes Defeat Before Full Result is Announced; Leaves &#8220;Temple Trees&#8221; after Meeting with Ranil to Discuss Smooth Transition of Power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>President Mahinda Rajapaksa has conceded defeat at the 2015 Presidential elections and left Temples Trees, the President\u2019s office said.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Director of the President\u2019s media unit Vijayananda Herath said that the President had left Temple Trees following a brief discussion with opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.<\/em><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<strong>Temple Trees<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The President had said that he was leaving Temple Trees after accepting the people\u2019s verdict and in order to allow the new President to take office.<\/p>\n<p>Common opposition Presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena was leading in the votes counted so far and is headed for victory in the polls.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Telephones Maithri<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>President Mahinda Rajapaksa had reportedly telephoned Common Candidate Maithripala Sirisena and congratulated him over the victory.<\/p>\n<p>Sources close to the President also said he discussed transition arrangements with the Common Candidate during the brief telephone conversation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meets Ranil<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had met President Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees this morning.<\/p>\n<p>During the meeting, the President had assured the Opposition Leader that there would be a smooth transfer of power.<\/p>\n<p>President Rajapaksa had also stated that he would accept the verdict of the people.<\/p>\n<p>The meeting took place in a context where the opposition\u2019s candidate had taken an early lead at the presidential election.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sirisena Thanks Voters<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Common opposition Presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena thanked the thousands of Sri Lankans who kept their unstinted faith in him during the election.<\/p>\n<p>Sirisena urged the public to now join him to help the country move towards a compassionate, Maithree era.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wish to respectfully thank the thousands of Sri Lankans who kept their unstinted faith in me. Let\u2019s move towards a compassionate, Maithree era,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Taking Oaths<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is still not clear as to when Maithripala Sirsena would take oaths as the President of Sri Lanka. <\/p>\n<p>While some speculate that he will take oaths this evening itself his elections manifesto states that the new President will take oaths on Saturday (January 10).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pledge Support<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, sources from the Common opposition said a sizable proportion of ruling party members are likely to pledge support to Sirisena after his ascension to power.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Compiled from News Reports in the Asian Mirror and Colombo Gazette)<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton36999\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D36999&amp;text=Mahinda%20Telephones%20Maithripala%20and%20Concedes%20Defeat%20Before%20Full%20Result%20is%20Announced%3B%20Leaves%20%26%238220%3BTemple...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Mahinda Rajapaksa has conceded defeat at the 2015 Presidential elections and left Temples Trees, the President\u2019s office said. Director of the President\u2019s media unit Vijayananda Herath said that the President had left Temple Trees following a brief discussion with opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36999"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37008,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36999\/revisions\/37008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}