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# Muslim Party Leader Accuses Sri Lanka’s Opposition Chief of Breaking Coalition Promises
- URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/muslim-party-leader-accuses-sri-lankas-opposition-chief-of-breaking-coalition-promises/
- Published: 2026-10-27T02:44:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-27T02:44:32.000Z
- Author: Our Reporter
- Tags: October  2026

**COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —** The leader of one of Sri Lanka’s main Muslim political parties has accused the country’s opposition leader, Sajith Premadasa, of breaking promises to his coalition partners and moving away from the inclusive politics he championed in the 2024 presidential election, exposing strains in an opposition already heavily outnumbered in Parliament.

“We are not slaves of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya,” Rishad Bathiudeen, the leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, said on Monday at a gathering in Kurunegala, referring to Mr. Premadasa’s party, the largest in the opposition.

Mr. Bathiudeen, a member of Parliament, said his party was an equal partner in the alliance and expected its contributions to be recognized. He said the S.J.B. leadership had failed to honor understandings reached with its allies before the elections, including commitments on National List seats, which parties fill by nomination in proportion to their share of the national vote.

Such arrangements are a customary part of coalition politics in Sri Lanka, Mr. Bathiudeen said, and he accused the S.J.B. of forgetting both its agreements and the principles on which the alliance was formed.

He said his party’s supporters had worked day and night during the presidential campaign, spending heavily and mobilizing voters for Mr. Premadasa.

Mr. Premadasa finished second to Anura Kumara Dissanayake in the September 2024 presidential election. Two months later, Mr. Dissanayake’s National People’s Power coalition won 159 of Parliament’s 225 seats, up from three in the previous Parliament, giving the government a two-thirds majority.

Mr. Bathiudeen pointed to that rise as a lesson for the opposition. He attributed the coalition’s success to public confidence in a platform that rejected ethnic and religious division and promised structural change, and suggested that the opposition risked losing voters’ trust if it abandoned similar principles for short-term electoral gain.

He said he had personally urged Mr. Premadasa not to compromise on his core convictions in the face of electoral setbacks.

“Neither ethnic chauvinism nor religious extremism,” he said, could benefit the country, its communities or future generations, adding that Sri Lanka’s history had shown the damage such nationalism could cause.

He did not specify which of Mr. Premadasa’s recent positions or decisions he regarded as a departure from those principles.

The A.C.M.C. draws much of its support from Muslim communities in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, and its relationships with larger national parties have often turned on negotiations over representation and coalition commitments.

Mr. Bathiudeen did not say that his party would leave the opposition alliance or move closer to the government. But his remarks present a challenge for Mr. Premadasa as he tries to hold together a coalition of smaller parties while rebuilding the opposition’s appeal against a government with an overwhelming majority.

Mr. Premadasa and the S.J.B. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.