The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) will not support current President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the forthcoming Presidential Election, SLPP MP Sagara Kariyawasam said.

Meanwhile, he said that the Politburo of the SLPP decided to field a Presidential Candidate of its own.

Furthermore, Kariyawasam expressed that the party will further look into qualified individuals to contest for the presidency and that the person with the most likelihood to win will officially be named the candidate of the SLPP during the upcoming days.

Meanwhile, the SLPP politburo has decided to take strict disciplinary action against any member of the SLPP contesting for the 2024 Presidential Election without the party’s approval.

In response to a question raised by a journalist whether it was not too late to delay the nomination of a candidate, Kariyawasam said that they would name the “winning candidate” at the “winning time”.

Commenting further he said: “There was an exchange of ideas that we should field a candidate under the symbol of the flower bud. A few members opposed that, but the majority was in favour of that decision. So, it was passed with a majority vote to field a separate candidate.”

On Friday (26), the election deposit was placed on behalf of President Ranil Wickremesinghe to contest the 2024 Presidential Election as an independent candidate. 

The Presidential Election will be held on September 21 and Nominations will be accepted on August 15, 2024.