CENTRE-RIGHT FORCES RALLY AGAINST CENTRE-LEFT NPP

They favour open markets, private-sector-led growth, foreign investment, and fiscal discipline.

- 

More or less, they accept a social safety net but reject large-scale state ownership.

Now, in the face of political challenges, the opposition appears to have calculated that the government can be outmanoeuvered easily through the employment of its collective strength. The combined opposition is numerically superior to the government even according to the results of the last local authorities' elections.

In politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, but interests. Now, interests merge in the wake of mounting political challenges.

Some opposition representatives did not mince their words. In what appeared to be a warning wrapped in a friendly tone, MP Chamara Sampath Dasanayake of the SLFP called for reconciliation between the UNP and SJB, in the main.

"Without mending fences, don't approach us for any alliance!" he told the gathering. That is a call for resolving internal differences for a coordinated opposition front.

The current development is a response to challenges posed by the government.

Political alignments are a response to circumstances unfolding. Some alignments evolve into well-knit electoral alliances, whereas others are meant to serve a particular purpose.