{"id":136421,"date":"2015-01-07T15:55:09","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T10:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=136421"},"modified":"2015-01-11T18:36:16","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T13:06:16","slug":"no-one-can-stop-exercise-your-franchise-silently-and-courageously-ranil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/no-one-can-stop-exercise-your-franchise-silently-and-courageously-ranil\/","title":{"rendered":"No One Can Stop; Exercise Your Franchise Silently And Courageously: Ranil"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"page\" title=\"Page 1\">\n<div class=\"layoutArea\">\n<div class=\"column\">\n<p>The people of our country will have yet another opportunity to exercise their democratic right to choose a leader of their choice. No one can stop, coerce or in any other way wrest this right away from them.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_117690\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Ranil-Wickramasinghe.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-117690\" class=\"size-full wp-image-117690\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Ranil-Wickramasinghe.jpg\" alt=\"Ranil Wickremesinghe\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-117690\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ranil Wickremesinghe<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I request with all sincerity and with the greatest respect from all our voters that they proceed to their respective polling booths and exercise their franchise silently, courageously and with a sense of pride.<\/p>\n<p>I also request that everyone, regardless of the candidate they voted for, celebrate the victory of democracy after the final results are announced in a spirit of friendship drawn from the commonality of shared citizenship in our fair land. In particular, as the Leader of the Opposition, I request that you contribute to building a new and more wholesome political culture in our country by standing up to defend your neighbour who may have been at odds with you politically should the need arise.<\/p>\n<p><em>*Statement Issued by Hon Ranil Wickremesinghe, Leader of the Opposition -January 7, 2015<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":117690,"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-136421","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>No One Can Stop; Exercise Your Franchise Silently And Courageously: Ranil - 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\/no-one-can-stop-exercise-your-franchise-silently-and-courageously-ranil\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"No One Can Stop; Exercise Your Franchise Silently And Courageously: Ranil - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/no-one-can-stop-exercise-your-franchise-silently-and-courageously-ranil\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-07T10:25:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-01-11T13:06:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Ranil-Wickramasinghe.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\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\/no-one-can-stop-exercise-your-franchise-silently-and-courageously-ranil\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/no-one-can-stop-exercise-your-franchise-silently-and-courageously-ranil\/\",\"name\":\"No One Can Stop; 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