Govt will secure over 63% of votes - Minister Premajayantha

by Shirajiv SIRIMANE

The Government will secure over 63 percent of the votes at the forthcoming general election, said General Secretary of the UPFA and Minister of Education Susil Premajayantha.

Speaking to the Sunday Observer, he said the results of the recently concluded presidential election endorsed his sentiments. “While President Mahinda Rajapaksa secured a 58 percent majority, the Opposition could only manage 40.15 percent,” he said.

The General Secretary said the Opposition which was united and fielded a common candidate under a common symbol for the presidential election has now split, decamped and contesting the general election under three different camps, without any unity.

He said that the party policies and the leadership of the UNP have been rejected and infighting has further demoralised supporters.

Similarly, the changing policies and switching of symbols have been rejected by the die-hard JVP supporters, resulting in further lowering their vote base.

The end result would be that the bulk of their voter base would refrain from voting, further reducing the number of votes for the party. The same scenario would be seen with regard to the TNA.

“There would be many of their supporters who vote for the government,” he said.

Due to the two parties polling a lower number of votes, they would only secure a handful of National List slots.

He said that the 20 percent floating votes as well as new voters are happy in the manner in which the Government is progressing and would vote for the ruling party.

He said if one looks back, the Government has kept its promises of ending the war and leading the country to prosperity. He said some of the new candidates fielded by the UPFA would secure more votes than the present ministers and senior politicians. “This was done purposely as we needed young blood, new faces and dynamic and respected personalities to power the nation to prosperity,” he said.

On the North and the East voters, Minister Premajayantha said their mindset is still not clear.

“They are still thinking about their relatives and property lost during the war. They were also brainwashed by the LTTE that this Government is a monster.

“Today the people have realised that this is not true and that the Government is their saviour.”

They are also happy with the development initiatives such as the Uthuru Wasanthaya and Nagenahira Navodaya which are specially focused on them. “Their mindset is now changing as they see the reality,” he said.

All the key pillars for a prosperous economy such as sea and aviation hub, electricity, infrastructure, IT, and an educated workforce have been created to woo investors and lead the nation towards development. Five ports, a new international airport, and expressways such as Colombo-Matara and Colombo-Katunayake are nearing completion while ‘electricity for all’ in two years will even enable the country to export electricity.

He however admitted that Spoken English is still a gray area and that this is being addressed through a master teacher training program where nearly 100 teachers were sent to the Hyderabad English University. “These teachers have returned and their task is to train nearly 22,000 English teachers,” he said.

He said in a bid to have an IT enabled workforce 4,500 labs have been set up in schools; this number would be increased to 100,000 by the end of next year.