PC campaign enters final round

by Wijitha NAKKAWITA

The final week of the provincial council election campaign in the Central and North Western province, will be seen from tomorrow with the main political parties going before the voters, the UPFA way ahead of the main opposition party the UNP trailing behind with JVP still behind, informed observers said yesterday (7).

The postal vote held a few days ago registered an 80 per cent turnout of postal voters indicating that the voters were keen to exercise their franchise in the election. The election monitoring voluntary organisation PAFFREL reported the postal vote was free and fair with no incidents of breaking the election laws reported.

The UPFA was certain of winning a decisive victory over the UNP as President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s popularity on his successful leadership in defeating the LTTE and deciding to seek a political solution to the problems of the Tamil people was the decisive factor, Chief Government Whip and Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Area Development Dinesh Gunawardena said.

After returning from taking part in the campaign in the two provinces recently, he said the government’s food production drive, Api Wavamu Rata Nagamu, also had become successful and people of both provinces where the farmers were the majority expected a very high yield of paddy and other crops. Even the weather gods had been kind to these people and their crops had flourished during the past and present crop seasons.

However UNP and opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe at a recent election rally in Narammala said though the government had made the LTTE terrorists to hide in the jungles of Mullaitivu it cannot hide the problems of the people in the jungles. And in the same meeting UNP’s Karu Jayasuriya was reported saying that it was the UNP that made the Sri Lanka army strong.

At a more recent campaign rally Wickremesinghe was reported saying that the UNP will go to courts against the UPFA candidates of the central province and their civic rights will be deprived.

The JVP in their election campaign rallies while hailing the victories of the armed forces relied on two political slogans, one was to say the government was moving towards an autocratic rule and the other was that it was acting on the dictates of India but the turnout at the JVP election campaign rallies had reduced considerably. Political analysts said the JVP would not retain even half the number of their present seats in both provincial councils.

A number of CWC and Up Country People’s Front leaders who addressed the campaign rallies in the Central Province assured that the plantation people will rally round the government especially due to the unprecedented service of President Mahinda Rajapaksa who had improved education, health, infrastructure and opened employment opportunities to plantation people.