Ranil will win -Johnston

Kurunegala special correspondent

Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe will win the Presidential election with a comfortable majority, Kurunegala district Parliamentarian Johnston Fernando said.

Addressing a rally in support of Wickremesinghe at Dambadeniya recently, Fernando said when the UNF was in power, the LTTE for the first time was prepared to enter into a negotiable peace settlement. "The international community also promised enormous amounts of money for rehabilitation of the North and the East during the UNF rule," he said.

Kurunegala district Parliamentarian Gamini Jayawickrama Perera said the JVP created a reign of terror in 1971 and collected money during the insurgency periods. He said the JVP had joined the SLFP because they had realised the folly of contesting on two different platforms.

Perera said the JVP was trying to make Sri Lanka go backward.