{"id":35859,"date":"2014-12-07T00:57:26","date_gmt":"2014-12-07T05:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=35859"},"modified":"2014-12-07T00:58:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-07T05:58:57","slug":"more-than-15-persons-including-dummy-candidates-in-presidential-pollnamal-rajapaksacontets-from-apey-jathika-peramunaunder-telephone-symbol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=35859","title":{"rendered":"More than 15 Persons Including “Dummy Candidates” In Presidential Poll:”Namal Rajapaksa”Contests From “Apey Jathika Peramuna”Under Telephone symbol"},"content":{"rendered":"

The official countdown for the January 8 presidential election gets under way with tomorrow\u2019s nominations where more than fifteen candidates will be in the fray. That the political battle will be between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his main rival Maithripala Sirisena, the main contenders, is all too well known. What remains to be known are the allegiances of at least some of the other candidates. <\/strong><\/p>\n

That they will \u2018back\u2019<\/strong> one of the two main contestants is of great interest in what is politically termed \u201cdummy candidates.\u201d<\/strong> It is only their stated stances after nominations that would highlight who they are in support of.<\/em><\/p>\n

The \u201cdummy candidates\u201d<\/strong> are fielded to enable their backers to seize maximum benefits that are afforded to candidates in terms of election laws. Among others, they are entitled to have two agents at every polling booth, assign counting agents and more importantly obtain free slots on state television networks to explain their policies. An example in point is the candidature of attorney Namal Rajapaksa who will represent the Apey Jathika Peramuna (AJP) or Our National Front with the telephone as his symbol.
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\nThe candidate is not the president\u2019s son.<\/strong> Earlier, the AJP was the hot favourite for Maithripala Sirisena to contest as presidential candidate with the symbol of the telephone. With this in mind both the AJP President (Senaka de Silva) and Secretary (Ruwan Ferdinandes) tendered their resignations. They have now withdrawn those letters and reverted to their original positions. Another candidate is being fielded by the Prajatantrawadi Jathika Viyaparaya or Democratic National Front whose Secretary is Chathura Senaratne, son of Rajitha Senaratne, the former Fisheries Minister and Kalutara District MP who crossed over to the Opposition. That party\u2019s symbol is the motor car.<\/p>\n

The reason: The Opposition troika \u2014 Maithripala Sirisena, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Ranil Wickremesinghe \u2013 have decided on the New Democratic Front (NDF) with Swan (or Hansaya) as the symbol. The prime mover in this regard was United National Party Assistant Leader Ravi Karunanayake, who is \u201cin possession of the party.\u201d A group of lawyers including Tilak Marapana PC, Wijayadasa Rajapaksha PC, Ronald Perera PC, J.C. Weliamuna, and Saliya Peiris were also in favour of this move though they advised that a few \u201cdummy candidates\u201d too would have to be fielded. Karunanayake countered claims that this party\u2019s image has been tainted since former General Fonseka, who had contested the presidential elections in 2010 and lost.<\/p>\n

He said if one were to go by that argument, even the UNP\u2019s Elephant symbol had suffered defeat at different elections but was still being retained. Moreover, he said, that the NDF and its symbol had been accepted at the 2010 presidential election and hence there would be no legal snags. Sirisena was to say any decision based on the recommendation of the lawyers was acceptable to him \u2014 the same view was expressed by Kumaratunga. One UPFA source said at least four \u201cdummy candidates\u201d may contest to espouse their candidate\u2019s cause in \u201cdifferent ways.\u201d They include a former MP who once represented the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).<\/p>\n

Courtesy:Sunday Times<\/em><\/p>\n

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The official countdown for the January 8 presidential election gets under way with tomorrow\u2019s nominations where more than fifteen candidates will be in the fray. That the political battle will be between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his main rival Maithripala Sirisena, the main contenders, is all too well known. What remains to be known are …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘More than 15 Persons Including “Dummy Candidates” In Presidential Poll:”Namal Rajapaksa”Contests From “Apey Jathika Peramuna”Under Telephone symbol’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35859"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35861,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35859\/revisions\/35861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}