Political alliances finalise nomination lists

by L.S. Ananda WEDAARACHCHI

The nomination lists for the forthcoming general election are being finalised by the political alliances.

The United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) list will include its constituent party candidates, said Education Minister and UPFA General Secretary Susil Premajayantha.

He said the UPFA nomination list will be completed during the next few days. We have already completed the interviews to select Sri Lanka Freedom Party candidates.

The constituent parties have informed the UPFA, the number of candidates they would field in each district. The UPFA nominations will be handed over on February 22 and 23, he said.

“This time the UPFA expects to field young professionals, media personnel and artistes.

However, the members of the previous Parliament will get priority”, he said.

Communist Party General Secretary Minister Dew Gunasekera said that his party would contest six districts - Colombo, Matara, Galle, Hambantota, Anuradhapura and Gampaha on the UPFA list.

Referring to the Northern and Eastern candidates, he said that all political forces against the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) must unite to work for the benefit of the Northern people who suffered severely under LTTE terror.National Freedom Front (NFF) leader Wimal Weerawansa said the NFF had been given 19 slots to contest under the UPFA.

Weerawansa said the NFF would field its candidates for 19 districts and it would field only two candidates in the Gampaha district.He said the UPFA would secure a two-third majority in Parliament at the forthcoming general election.

United National Party (UNP) media spokesman Gayantha Karunatilake said that the Party Nomination Board had so far received over 500 applications for nominations including the North and the East. Academics, retired high ranking Government officials, professionals and artistes were among those who had applied. UNP district leaders and electoral organisers will, however, be given priority, he said.

On the recommendation of the district leaders, the working committee had decided to contest the general election under the Elephant symbol, he said.The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said that they would not contest the election under the Elephant symbol.

A JVP spokesman said that discussions were under way with the SLMC (Hakeem faction), TNA, SLFP(M) and DPF (Mano Ganeshan) to form a new front to contest the election under a common symbol.