Ravi Karunanayake Said That He Would Be Prime Minister if Ranil Wins the Upcoming Presidential Election? Find out the facts…

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As the presidential election in Sri Lanka approaches, a surge of misleading information is seen across all social media platforms. These false claims and deceptive narratives often create confusion among the public. Ensuring accurate and reliable information is more crucial than ever during this critical period.

Social Media Posts

A series of posts that went viral among Facebook users claimed that Ravi Karunanayake, former minister and national secretary of the United National Party, had stated he would become the Prime Minister if Ranil Wickremesinghe, the current president, wins the upcoming presidential election. This purported claim had been created as an image resembling a newspaper report.

FB | Archived

We decided to do a fact-check on this.

Fact Check

Verification:

We initially conducted a keyword search to see if such a statement was published in any news or social media streams. However, we did not see any such statement by Ravi K.

Since the viral image resembled a newspaper front page, we checked the front pages of all Sinhala language national pages in Sri Lanka from the last week of July to the first week of August. However, we could not find anything that matched the purported image.

Clarifications from Newspaper Editors:

As the fonts of social media posts are similar to those of Mawbima newspaper, we contacted the news editor, who also confirmed that no such article or statement had been published in their newspaper.

Statement from Ravi Karunanayake:

Upon inquiry, Chanaka Siriwardana, Ravi Karunanayake's media coordinator, also blatantly denied the viral posts. He clarified that even though Ravi Karunanayake has not made any such statement about becoming the Prime Minister if Ranil Wickremesinghe wins the presidential election.

Background Context:

Ravi Karunanayake has been actively promoting Ranil Wickeramasinghe's campaign, which can be seen as one reason for creating such fabricated posts.

We also noticed another purported newspaper clipping of the same format, attributed to the Chairman of the UNP, MP Wajira Abeywardena. These posts indicated that Wajira Abeywardena supposedly mentioned that the forthcoming President and the Prime Minister would represent the United National Party.

Archived

However, upon keyword search, we could not find any recent newspaper report or a journalist with the said name in any mainstream newspapers either. The media unit of MP Wajira Abeywardena also denied him making any such statement.

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Conclusion:

The claim that Ravi Karunanayake stated that he would become the Prime Minister in the event of Ranil Wickremesinghe winning the upcoming presidential election is false.

There is no evidence to support this claim in any recent newspaper publications either, and the media unit of Ravi Karunanayake has denied him making such a statement.