The release of the Constitutional Assembly’s Steering Committee report on constitutional reform gave the hope that it would be the government’s priority in the coming months. This calculation was buttressed by the government’s repeated postponement of local government elections which became extended to the postponement of provincial council elections also. The problem facing the government is that any local election would pit the coalition partners against each other, possibly to the detriment of their alliance. This led to speculation that the government would go into a referendum on a new constitution on the basis that this would be the best way to reunify the government alliance. It was argued that a referendum would impel all parties that supported the candidacy of President Maithripala Sirisena at the presidential elections of 2015 to get together again as a unified force to win the referendum.