{"id":42722,"date":"2015-08-17T21:55:51","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T01:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=42722"},"modified":"2015-08-17T21:55:51","modified_gmt":"2015-08-18T01:55:51","slug":"mahinda-rajapaksa-concedes-defeat-in-parliamentary-poll-saying-his-dream-of-becoming-prime-minister-has-faded-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=42722","title":{"rendered":"Mahinda Rajapaksa Concedes Defeat in Parliamentary Poll Saying his &#8220;Dream of Becoming Prime Minister has Faded Away&#8221;."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Sri Lanka\u2019s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa has conceded defeat in parliamentary elections but said he would work as an opposition member of the legislature.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy dream of becoming prime minister has faded away,\u201d Rajapaksatold the Agence France-Presse news agency. \u201cI am conceding. We have lost a good fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rajapaksa accepted that his United People\u2019s Freedom Alliance had lost even before the elections chief could announce the final results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have won eight districts and the UNP [ruling United National party] has 11 [out of a total of 22],\u201d Rajapakse said. \u201cThis means we have lost. It was a difficult fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Official figures showed the same breakdown of results.<\/p>\n<p>The remaining three districts were dominated by a minority Tamil party, officials said, adding that no party was set to secure an absolute majority of 113 seats in the 225-member parliament following Monday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n<p>The elections commissioner, Mahinda Deshapriya, said he expected the release of the final party positions by midday on Tuesday while individual votes garnered by candidates would be announced later.<\/p>\n<p>When Rajapaksa cast his ballot on Monday he expressed confidence that he could return to power as Sri Lanka\u2019s prime minister after losing the presidency in a January 2015 election.<\/p>\n<p>Deshapriya said the vote, called a year ahead of schedule by President Maithripala Sirisena, had been one of the most peaceful in Sri Lanka\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p>Since his surprise victory over his former mentor Sirisena has struggled to impose his authority over his United people\u2019s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and was powerless to prevent Rajapaksa from standing as one of its candidates.<\/p>\n<p><em>Courtesy:theguardian.com<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton42722\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D42722&amp;text=Mahinda%20Rajapaksa%20Concedes%20Defeat%20in%20Parliamentary%20Poll%20Saying%20his%20%26%238220%3BDream%20of%20Becoming%20Prime%20Minister%20has...%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\u2019s former president Mahinda Rajapaksa has conceded defeat in parliamentary elections but said he would work as an opposition member of the legislature. \u201cMy dream of becoming prime minister has faded away,\u201d Rajapaksatold the Agence France-Presse news agency. \u201cI am conceding. We have lost a good fight.\u201d Rajapaksa accepted that his United People\u2019s Freedom &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=42722\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;Mahinda Rajapaksa Concedes Defeat in Parliamentary Poll Saying his &#8220;Dream of Becoming Prime Minister has Faded Away&#8221;.&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\/42722"}],"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=42722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42723,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42722\/revisions\/42723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}