By
Dharisha Bastians
The 17 August Parliamentary election officially kicked off after nominations closed at noon yesterday, with all major political parties throwing their hat in the ring to win seats in Sri Lanka’s 15th Parliament.
According to the nomination lists handed over at the district secretariats by noon yesterday, 6,151 candidates will compete for 196 seats in the country’s 225-member Legislature next month.
Battle lines have been drawn in what promises to be a tightly-fought election, with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa ready to make a major political comeback and a newly-energised United National Party and the broad alliance it leads promising to defeat him for the second time this year.
In an unprecedented development, the retired President will seek a seat in Parliament, leading the UPFA’s Kurunegala District list.
Rajapaksa loyalists in the UPFA have already pledged to campaign for his election as prime minister, even though President Maithripala Sirisena on 30 June ruled out nominating him as the party’s prime ministerial hopeful.
“I promise to work to root out corruption and deceit, create a peaceful society and prioritise national security,” the former President told supporters in Kurunegala yesterday.
Rajapaksa told Reuters by telephone yesterday that he and President Sirisena would be “leading” the UPFA polls campaign.
“Today, people want change. I am leading the campaign with President Sirisena as the Chairman of the party to form a Sri Lanka Freedom Party-led Government,” the former President told Reuters after he handed in nomination papers.
The decision to allow Mahinda Rajapaksa to contest the election has irked millions of voters who elected President Sirisena to office and disillusioned key ministers and political activists who fought hard for his victory in January.
The President, who has remained silent on the issue for over a week now, is being accused of ‘betrayal’ by his staunchest allies. Yesterday the Presidential Media Unit denied speculation that President Sirisena was scheduled to issue a statement after the deadline for nominations had lapsed.
Former Sirisena aides told the Daily FT last weekend that the President was set to issue a “shocking” statement at the close of the nominations period, widely speculated to be an announcement that he was quitting as leader of the UPFA.
The President is also coming under heavy criticism from former allies for permitting his party to grant nominations to several former MPs remanded over corruption charges, including Johnston Fernando and Hambantota’s infamous ‘toy pistol’ mayor Eraj Fernando on the UPFA list.
Three members of the Rajapaksa family – Namal Rajapaksa, Chamal Rajapaksa and Nirupama Rajapaksa – will also contest from the Hambantota District.
However, the UPFA declined to give nominations to notorious former MPs Duminda Silva, Sajin Vaas Gunewardane, Sarana Gunewardane and Mervyn Silva. Pressure has been mounted over the weekend by Kolonnawa supporters and Buddhist monks on the UPFA to grant Duminda Silva a nomination.
Former President Rajapaksa will contest in the Kurunegala District, the island’s third largest district, to raise his chances to claim the title of prime minister if the UPFA wins the polls.
SLFP General Secretary Anura Priyadarshana Yapa handed over nominations for the UPFA at the Kurunegala District Secretariat yesterday.
“Actually it is President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is district leader. I am the deputy,” Yapa told reporters at the Secretariat.
Energy Minister and JHU strongman Champika Ranawaka, who has been named General Secretary of the United National Front for Good Governance, which will be registered as a political alliance only post-poll, said there was work left to do to make the 8 January struggle meaningful.
“The political decisions we made in the past allowed us to bring real change to this country. We were able to restore democracy and root out nepotism, autocracy and corruption,” Ranawaka said when he arrived at the Colombo District Secretariat to hand over nominations yesterday.
The UPFA will hold its maiden rally in Anuradhapura on 17 July. The UNP kicks off its election campaign with a rally in Kandy today.
In the National Lists of the leading parties there were old and new faces, both which drew criticism from political analysts. The JVP’s list was widely commended for containing a host of professionals.
Mahinda claims people want change and he is leading it with Maithri
Reuters: A coalition led by the President has nominated war-time leader Mahinda Rajapaksa run in elections next month, official documents showed on Monday, with allies saying he will stand for the post of prime minister.
President Maithripala Sirisena defeated Rajapaksa in a bitterly fought election in January. He was forced to give the former leader the nomination in the face of strong demands from his party or risk a split.
Rajapaksa’s crushing of a 26-year Tamil Tiger insurgency in 2009 won him support among the island nation’s Sinhalese majority, and he still has a strong following. He becomes Sri Lanka’s first defeated leader to seek a legislative seat.
“Today, people wants a change. I’m leading the campaign with President Sirisena as the Chairman of the party to form a Sri Lanka Freedom Party-led Government,” Mahinda Rajapaksa told Reuters by phone after handing over the nomination documents.
Rajapaksa will stand in the country’s third-largest electoral district, Kurunegala, where most voters have relatives in the military. The elections are set for 17 August.
Rajapaksa’s allies say if elected, he would immediately resume Chinese projects suspended by the Sirisena Government.
Sirisena is re-examining certain projects in which China has invested, including a $1.4-billion port city in the capital, Colombo. China has already built a seaport and airport in Sri Lanka’s south, raising fears it is seeking influence in a country where neighbouring India has deep ties.
If his bid is successful, Rajapaksa will have more powers than any of his predecessors, after Sirisena enhanced some of the powers of the post with reforms in April. Sirisena will still have the power of a veto.
Sirisena, a former minister in Rajapaksa’s administration, defected last year to run for president, promising fresh elections in 2015. The Parliamentary election comes after months of deadlock in the legislature, as a six-month-old coalition Government cobbled together by Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has struggled to pass key political reforms.
Wickremesinghe leads the centre-right United National Party (UNP), Sirisena the rival centre-left SLFP. Rajapaksa will run as part of an SLFP-led coalition, also headed by Sirisena.
Rajapaksa and his regime still face a United Nations war crimes investigation. A report on alleged rights abuses in the final phase of the war is due in September.
Courtesy:Daily FT