Lankan PM wins no-confidence vote

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe defeated a no-confidence motion in parliament late on Wednesday but political tensions rose after 13 MPs from an allied party voted against him.

Wickremesinghe said he would hold talks with President Maithripala Sirisena after coming through the battle by 122 votes to 76. Sirisena has criticised the prime minister’s handling of the economy and has in the past called on Wickremesinghe to stand down.

Thirteen members of Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) joined opposition lawmakers to vote against the prime minister, whose United National Party is the largest single party in the 225-member assembly. "We have started a lot of work and made many changes -- democracy, economy and rural development," the prime minister told reporters after the vote. "We also faced problems such as drought, cost of living and some economic issues, we will study both positives and negatives and move forward."