{"id":37146,"date":"2015-01-11T11:25:38","date_gmt":"2015-01-11T16:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=37146"},"modified":"2015-01-11T11:25:38","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T16:25:38","slug":"first-thing-new-cabinet-will-investigate-is-the-coup-conspiracy-by-mahinda-rajapaksa-to-hold-on-to-power-by-annulling-elections-mangala-samaraweera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=37146","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;First thing new Cabinet will Investigate is the Coup Conspiracy by Mahinda Rajapaksa to Hold on to Power by Annulling Elections&#8221;-Mangala Samaraweera"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Sri Lanka&#8217;s new government will investigate an attempt by Mahinda Rajapakse to stage a &#8220;coup&#8221; to stay in power after it became clear he had lost last week&#8217;s presidential election, a spokesman said Sunday.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People think it was a peaceful transition. It was anything but,&#8221; spokesman Mangala Samaraweera told reporters. &#8220;The first thing the new cabinet will investigate is the coup and conspiracy by president Rajapakse.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He stepped down only when the army chief and the police Inspector General refused to go along with him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rajapakse had been widely praised for conceding defeat early on Friday, even before the last votes in Thursday&#8217;s election had been counted, when he realised that his rival Maithripala Sirisena had an unassailable lead.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But Samaraweera said that the 69-year-old, who had ruled the country since 2005, tried his best to annul the poll and cling onto power.<\/p>\n<p>He said police Inspector General N. K. Illangakoon was &#8220;very vocal and did not want to be a party to this coup&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Army chief Daya Ratnayake stood by the police and refused to deploy troops for Rajapakse to seize power, while the state attorney general&#8217;s department warned of dangerous consequences, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p>Rajapakse planned to stop the vote count as it became apparent that he was headed for a shock defeat and wanted to remain in office by issuing a proclamation declaring himself the president, Samaraweera said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some world leaders have also spoken with president Rajapakse and prevailed on him to ensure a peaceful transition,&#8221; Samaraweera said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know who had spoken, but we know some leaders did talk to him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:Economy Next<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton37146\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D37146&amp;text=%26%238220%3BFirst%20thing%20new%20Cabinet%20will%20Investigate%20is%20the%20Coup%20Conspiracy%20by%20Mahinda%20Rajapaksa%20to%20Hold%20on%20to...%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>Sri Lanka&#8217;s new government will investigate an attempt by Mahinda Rajapakse to stage a &#8220;coup&#8221; to stay in power after it became clear he had lost last week&#8217;s presidential election, a spokesman said Sunday. &#8220;People think it was a peaceful transition. It was anything but,&#8221; spokesman Mangala Samaraweera told reporters. &#8220;The first thing the new &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=37146\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;&#8220;First thing new Cabinet will Investigate is the Coup Conspiracy by Mahinda Rajapaksa to Hold on to Power by Annulling Elections&#8221;-Mangala Samaraweera&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/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\/37146"}],"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=37146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37147,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37146\/revisions\/37147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}