{"id":46563,"date":"2022-07-19T15:04:32","date_gmt":"2022-07-19T06:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jul\/19\/sri-lanka-opposition-leader-quits-presidential-run-in-bid-to-stymie-wickremesinghe"},"modified":"2022-07-19T15:04:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-19T06:04:32","slug":"sri-lanka-opposition-leader-quits-presidential-run-in-bid-to-stymie-wickremesinghe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=46563","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka opposition leader quits presidential run in bid to stymie Wickremesinghe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sajith Premadasa instead pledges support for splinter faction of ruling party that could upset PM\u2019s bid to become president<\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka\u2019s main opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, has withdrawn from the presidential race and thrown his support behind a rival candidate, presenting a significant challenge to prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe\u2019s bid for the executive role.<\/p>\n<p>In an announcement made on Tuesday morning, Premadasa said that \u201cfor the greater good of my country that I love and the people I cherish, I hereby withdraw my candidacy for the position of president\u201d.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/jul\/19\/sri-lanka-opposition-leader-quits-presidential-run-in-bid-to-stymie-wickremesinghe\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sajith Premadasa instead pledges support for splinter faction of ruling party that could upset PM\u2019s bid to become presidentSri Lanka\u2019s main opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, has withdrawn from the presidential race and thrown his support behind a ri&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":697,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,674],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sri-lanka"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/697"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46564,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46563\/revisions\/46564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}