President decides CM will be one with most votes

by Franklin.R.Satyapalan
United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) General Secretary, Minister Susil Premajayantha yesterday said that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had decided in a very democratic manner and in fairness to all communities in the East that the Chief Minister would be the candidate who obtains the highest number of votes at the polls on May 10.

Addressing the media in Colombo, he said the President had decided that the Government would move forward with the proposal made by the All Party Representative Committee(APRC) to implement the 13th Amendment in full.

This was in fairness to the Muslim and Tamil communities, the majority of voters in the Eastern Province, but the United National Party has been very unfair by the Tamil Voters in the East by declaring at the very inception of the election campaign that SLMC Leader Rauf Hakeem would be the UNP’s choice for Chief Minister if the UNP were to win the election.

He said that while he was very confident of a major victory for the UPFA, he would request the eastern voters not to be misled into wasting their votes by voting for the UNP as the party had already accepted defeat by starting to whine and complain at every turn preparing a case for its defeat. There were reports in the National Media that the Chief Ministerial candidate of the UNP, SLMC Leader Rauff Hakeem, too had accepted defeat and told the Alliance of Muslim Parties led by NUA leader which met him that he was ready to sit in the opposition

The UPFA government had been fair by all communities and parties and had granted 15 slots to the Tamil Community, 18 to the Muslim community and distributed the balance 11 slots among the Sinhala parties the MEP, JHU, SLMP, DVJP and SLFP, he said.

The Senior Vice President of the SLFP Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, General Secretary of the SLFP Minister Maithripala Sirisena, Peoples Alliance General Secretary Minister D. M. Jayaratne, Veteran SLFP Trade Unionist and Governor Alavi Mowlana, MEP leader Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, CPSL leader Minister Dew Gunasekera, LSSP leader Minister Prof Tissa Vitharna, DVJP Leader P.M.Appuhamy, NUA leader Minister Ferial Ashraff, Ministers Anura Priyadharshana Yapa, Dallas Alahapperuma, Presidential advisor A. H. M. Azwer, Administrative secretary of the SLFP S. H. Ariyasena were present at the conference.