{"id":113576,"date":"2013-11-05T00:26:56","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T18:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=113576"},"modified":"2013-12-03T04:27:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T22:57:00","slug":"and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/","title":{"rendered":"And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A nine member UNP Leadership Council was whittled down to seven a few hours ago after UNP MP Thalatha Athukorale, refused a seat on the Council this afternoon.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_113579\" style=\"width: 138px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/thalatha-athukorale\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-113579\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-113579\" class=\"size-full wp-image-113579 \" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg\" width=\"128\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-113579\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thalatha Athukorale<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Athukorale is a strong supporter of <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Sajith+Premadasa&amp;x=10&amp;y=2\">Sajith Premadasa<\/a><\/span> who refused to sit on the Council after it was constituted yesterday, claiming it would be a betrayal of the monks that tried to broker the compromise.<\/p>\n<p>Athukorale&#8217;s inclusion in the Leadership Council was strongly advocated by <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Karu+Jayasuriya&amp;x=14&amp;y=3\">Karu Jayasuriya<\/a><\/span> who was appointed Chairman of the new body, both because she was a Premadasa adherent and also would bring much needed female representation into the decision making process going forward.<\/p>\n<p>Premadasa&#8217;s powerful media backers are insisting that Premadasa and his associates do not participate in the Leadership Council because that would prevent them from continuing the agitation against <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Ranil+Wickremasinghe&amp;x=13&amp;y=5\">Ranil Wickremesinghe<\/a><\/span>. With Jayasuriya at the helm of the new Council Premadasa&#8217;s backers believe that the path to the leadership is blocked for the MP from Hambantota.<\/p>\n<p>The thinking of the Premadasa camp is that if the reformists who have been granted places in the Council opt out of the process, it can be condemned unreservedly as a Council made up of Ranil loyalists.<\/p>\n<p>Jayasuriya who was hitherto believed to be a member of the reformist camp has been denounced in the Mawbima, Ceylon Today and Sirasa networks for betraying the reformist cause. Going forward, the Premadasa faction and its backers will treat Jayasuriya in much the same way they treated Wickremesinghe, sources said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":113579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,6969,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-11-04T18:56:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2013-12-02T22:57:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"128\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"180\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/\",\"name\":\"And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-11-04T18:56:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-12-02T22:57:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg\",\"width\":\"128\",\"height\":\"180\",\"caption\":\"Thalatha Athukorale - Ex-Minster of Justice\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\",\"name\":\"Colombo Telegraph\",\"description\":\"In journalism truth is a process\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3\",\"name\":\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/colombo_telegraph\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council - Colombo Telegraph","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council - Colombo Telegraph","og_description":"[&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/","og_site_name":"Colombo Telegraph","article_published_time":"2013-11-04T18:56:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2013-12-02T22:57:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":128,"height":180,"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/","name":"And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council - Colombo Telegraph","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg","datePublished":"2013-11-04T18:56:56+00:00","dateModified":"2013-12-02T22:57:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg","width":"128","height":"180","caption":"Thalatha Athukorale - Ex-Minster of Justice"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/and-then-there-were-7-thalatha-opts-out-of-unp-leadership-council\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"And Then There Were 7: Thalatha Opts Out Of UNP Leadership Council"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/","name":"Colombo Telegraph","description":"In journalism truth is a process","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/9db3d0cfcfa59e1997e3c3524d454cb3","name":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/920b3181b0bf86b5c339ad9f0963a89f6a8b19c4b971e629987a021ba7a663df?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH"},"url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/author\/colombo_telegraph\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Thalatha-Athukorale.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113576"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116147,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113576\/revisions\/116147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}