The two main contenders in Sri Lanka’s Presidential elections stepped up their campaigns this week amid continuing speculation about plans by the incumbent, Chandrika Kumaratunga, to dissolve parliament due to a rift with her party’s candidate.
The main opposition United National Party (UNP) launched the manifesto of its candidate, Ranil Wickremesinghe, this week while his main rival, Premier Mahinda Rajapakse of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), was forced on the defensive by continuing media speculation of a rift within his party.
Sri Lanka’s independent media has been giving considerable coverage, albeit speculatively, to a rift between Rajapakse and Kumaratunga, who returned Tuesday from three weeks in the United States where she had earlier attended a United Nations summit.
Reacting furiously to a recent story in the independent Daily Mirror newspaper, Rajapakse’s campaign manager, Mangala Samaraweera, insisted that President Kumaratunga had no reason or plan to dissolve parliament before the presidential poll.
Alleging there as a UNP plot to make out that there was a battle raging within the SLFP with the President at loggerheads with the Premier’s, Samaraweera rubbished the newspaper, pointing out it was owned by relations of Mr. Wickremesinghe.
“I say with responsibility that [President Kumaratunga] has no such intention [of dissolving Parliament] and is committed to ensuring [Mr. Rajapakse’s] victory,” he said.
He said the rumors were aimed at mobilising the UNP’s own district organisers who were not taking an active part in the presidential campaign, because they were sure of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s defeat at the November 17 poll.
For its part, the UNP launched its own manifesto, aimed its policies squarely at Mr. Rajapske’s core supporters: the rural poor and Sinhala nationalists.
Although Mr. Rajapakse’s own manifesto will not be published for another week, his alliances with the ultra-nationalist JVP (People’s Liberation Front) and the hardline monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) have produce a platform that is stridently Sinhala nationalist and weighted towards the rural poor.
This week the UNP pledged a raft of subsidies and vowed to ‘defeat separatism’ if Mr. Wickremesinghe were elected.
The UNP promised to reduce the price of essential food items, including milk powder, and provide fertilizer subsidies and price guarantees to farmers
About a quarter of the island’s population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank and more than 80 percent of the 19 million people live in the countryside.
The ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), under Kumaratunga’s leadership, toppled Wickremesinghe’s UNP-led coalition in April 2004 when voters backed her party’s pledge to lift rural incomes and rejected his success in brokering a cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers.
Sri Lankan stocks rose Wednesday at the Colombo Bourse as local and foreign investors, confident of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s pledges, bought shares across the board.
Rajapakse’s camp meanwhile said it would provide a good pension scheme, grant medical, transport and other benefits to pensioners, ensure housing programmes for public servants are doubled and a clear policy to improve public sector service conditions.
Describing Mr. Wickremesinghe’s manifesto as a “sack of promises”, Mr. Samaraweera said the UNP had sung a different tune about its policies at every election since 1999.
The LTTE does not plan to rally the minority Tamil community for or against either Sinhala candidate.
“Both have victory as their objective and want to use the conflict of the Tamil people for their advantage - one wants to bash Tamils and get the (majority) Sinhala vote while the other wants to be seen as a moderate and win the minority vote,” LTTE Political Wing head, Mr. S. P. Thamilselvan told Reuters.
The Sri Lankan government has neveretheless requested the elections chief to establish cluster polling booths in Army-controlled areas for the presidential polls to be held in all parts of the north and the east.
In the past when clustered booths have been set up for people in LTTE-controlled areas to cross over the frontlines to vote, the Army has closed routes, denying thousands access.
Despite the UNP’s concession to Sinhala nationalist concerns about defeating terrorism, the JVP was swift to denounce the manifesto, saying it “is prepared in favor of separatism.”
JVP propaganda secretary Wimal Weerawansa accused Wickremesinghe of being vague in his policy and of aiming to grant an interim administration to the LTTE, fulfilling Tiger aspirations for a separate state in the north and east of the island.
The JVP is meanwhile under fire for comments its leader, Somawansa Amerasinghe, is said to have made at Rajapakse’s campaign launch last week.
He reportedly declared that the Sri Lankan security forces should be disbanded if they fail to protect Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity.
A group of former heads of Sri Lankan armed forces are denouncing the JVP, saying its leader’s remark was an insult to those who were killed and made disabled “while saving the motherland” in two decades of civil war.
UNP to 'defeat separatism' [September 28, 2005]
The main opposition United National Party (UNP) launched the manifesto of its candidate, Ranil Wickremesinghe, this week while his main rival, Premier Mahinda Rajapakse of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), was forced on the defensive by continuing media speculation of a rift within his party.
Sri Lanka’s independent media has been giving considerable coverage, albeit speculatively, to a rift between Rajapakse and Kumaratunga, who returned Tuesday from three weeks in the United States where she had earlier attended a United Nations summit.
Reacting furiously to a recent story in the independent Daily Mirror newspaper, Rajapakse’s campaign manager, Mangala Samaraweera, insisted that President Kumaratunga had no reason or plan to dissolve parliament before the presidential poll.
Alleging there as a UNP plot to make out that there was a battle raging within the SLFP with the President at loggerheads with the Premier’s, Samaraweera rubbished the newspaper, pointing out it was owned by relations of Mr. Wickremesinghe.
“I say with responsibility that [President Kumaratunga] has no such intention [of dissolving Parliament] and is committed to ensuring [Mr. Rajapakse’s] victory,” he said.
He said the rumors were aimed at mobilising the UNP’s own district organisers who were not taking an active part in the presidential campaign, because they were sure of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s defeat at the November 17 poll.
For its part, the UNP launched its own manifesto, aimed its policies squarely at Mr. Rajapske’s core supporters: the rural poor and Sinhala nationalists.
Although Mr. Rajapakse’s own manifesto will not be published for another week, his alliances with the ultra-nationalist JVP (People’s Liberation Front) and the hardline monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) have produce a platform that is stridently Sinhala nationalist and weighted towards the rural poor.
This week the UNP pledged a raft of subsidies and vowed to ‘defeat separatism’ if Mr. Wickremesinghe were elected.
The UNP promised to reduce the price of essential food items, including milk powder, and provide fertilizer subsidies and price guarantees to farmers
About a quarter of the island’s population lives in poverty, according to the World Bank and more than 80 percent of the 19 million people live in the countryside.
The ruling United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), under Kumaratunga’s leadership, toppled Wickremesinghe’s UNP-led coalition in April 2004 when voters backed her party’s pledge to lift rural incomes and rejected his success in brokering a cease-fire with the Tamil Tigers.
Sri Lankan stocks rose Wednesday at the Colombo Bourse as local and foreign investors, confident of Mr. Wickremesinghe’s pledges, bought shares across the board.
Rajapakse’s camp meanwhile said it would provide a good pension scheme, grant medical, transport and other benefits to pensioners, ensure housing programmes for public servants are doubled and a clear policy to improve public sector service conditions.
Describing Mr. Wickremesinghe’s manifesto as a “sack of promises”, Mr. Samaraweera said the UNP had sung a different tune about its policies at every election since 1999.
The LTTE does not plan to rally the minority Tamil community for or against either Sinhala candidate.
“Both have victory as their objective and want to use the conflict of the Tamil people for their advantage - one wants to bash Tamils and get the (majority) Sinhala vote while the other wants to be seen as a moderate and win the minority vote,” LTTE Political Wing head, Mr. S. P. Thamilselvan told Reuters.
The Sri Lankan government has neveretheless requested the elections chief to establish cluster polling booths in Army-controlled areas for the presidential polls to be held in all parts of the north and the east.
In the past when clustered booths have been set up for people in LTTE-controlled areas to cross over the frontlines to vote, the Army has closed routes, denying thousands access.
Despite the UNP’s concession to Sinhala nationalist concerns about defeating terrorism, the JVP was swift to denounce the manifesto, saying it “is prepared in favor of separatism.”
JVP propaganda secretary Wimal Weerawansa accused Wickremesinghe of being vague in his policy and of aiming to grant an interim administration to the LTTE, fulfilling Tiger aspirations for a separate state in the north and east of the island.
The JVP is meanwhile under fire for comments its leader, Somawansa Amerasinghe, is said to have made at Rajapakse’s campaign launch last week.
He reportedly declared that the Sri Lankan security forces should be disbanded if they fail to protect Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity.
A group of former heads of Sri Lankan armed forces are denouncing the JVP, saying its leader’s remark was an insult to those who were killed and made disabled “while saving the motherland” in two decades of civil war.
UNP to 'defeat separatism' [September 28, 2005]
