Nearly one week after the presidential election was announced, Asian Mirror can now reveal that two more Cabinet Ministers have already pledged support to the common opposition and will cross over at any time.

With them, two highly popular female Provincial Councilors of the ruling party will also extend their support to the common candidate, highly placed political sources said last night.

One Cabinet Minister, who was brought into politics by the former president in her run-up to the Executive Presidency in 1994, represents the District of Colombo. Even before the former President joined the political campaign of the common opposition, the Minister had close relations with Kumaratunga.

The other Cabinet Minister, who comes from a political family, is from the hill country. He has already indicated that he is dissatisfied with certain developments within the ruling party. He is likely to join the common opposition after the Colombo District Cabinet Minister's crossover. 

“Although the opposition earlier talked about crossovers that come “in installments”, they have now resorted to a new strategy of “one by one crossovers – meaning one ruling MP joining the opposition at a time,” a strongman of the common opposition told Asian Mirror last night.

Two days ago, we exclusively revealed that the initial list of SLFP defectors, which was given to UNP National Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe by former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, was leaked to President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the eleventh hour.

The President, following this development, had personally contacted each and every ruling party MP whose name was on that list to assure that he would look into their grievances.

Almost all the SLFP defectors, when contacted by the President, had pledged to support him at the forthcoming presidential election.