COLOMBO: Hunais Farook, a legislator bekonging to Sri Lanka’s ruling Coalition, defected to the opposition United National Party (UNP) on Wednesday. The defection comes in the build-up to presidential election slated for Jan 8.

Only the previous day P.Rajathurai, another ruling coalition MP, had crossed over to the United National Party. Farook is the first Muslim MP to defect from the ruling coalition.

His switching of sides comes in the midst of speculation that Muslims will vote against President Mahinda Rajapaksa because of the perception that he did not protect them from Sinhalese-Buddhist rioters during violence this year.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2014