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by Rashomi Silva

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) demands to carve out a 'Muslim majority district, comprising Kalmunai, Pottuwil and Samanturai electorates as a pre condition to support Mahinda Rajapakshe, the ruling party presidential candidate in the presidential election due in November, party sources said yesterday.

Muslims who are the third largest majority in the country do not have a single Muslim majority district, as opposed to seven Tamil majority districts and 70 odd Sinhala majority districts, said a spokesperson for the party, talking to the Sunday Observer.

"If we are to support the party in power we need some thing more than promises," he said and quoted the example of late President Ranasingha Premadasa who amended the constitution overnight to bring down the cut off point for parliamentary selection to five percent from 12 percent, responding to a request from the SLMC. That was the major demand of the SLMC at the '89 presidential election to support the UNP. We expect a similar commitment from the party in office today to show their concern for our community," he said.

"But for the time being we have decided to go it alone," he said and added that the party still had not ruled out the possibility of joining with one of the main candidates provided they respond positively to their minimum demands.

"At the moment we are in the process of prioritising demands forwarded by three Muslim majority electorates in the East. Once we have finalised the list we will forward the list to both leading candidates".

Referring to an alliance with United National Party he said the main focus is to get a strong commitment from its leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe to send a separate Muslim delegation for talks when talks re-commence. "Muslim community would then be an equal stakeholder in the process," he added.

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