UPFA victory assured - Minister

Nadira GUNATILLEKE

UPFA’s victory at Saturday’s election is already confirmed, UPFA General Secretary and Education Minister Susil Premajayantha said.

“The UPFA today is a much better alliance with more political parties and groups than in 2004. In 2004, the UPFA won the Western Provincial Council with 165,000 majority votes from the Colombo district, 85,000 majority votes from the Gampaha district and another 45,000 majority votes from the Kalutara district,” the Minister said.

“It will win this election without doubt. The UPFA expects 68 or 69 seats but there is a possibility of this number rising with certain news that will come from the North in the next two days. The UPFA does not need to get involved in violence because victory is already confirmed. No one should try to create black marks in that victory by getting involved in violent acts,” the Minister added.

The only tactic opted by the opposition to cover up their continuous defeats was gathering ‘facts’ prior to the election. This strategy has also become useless now. There are only 95 incidents reported from the Western Provincial Council so far and only nine are major incidents. The other 86 incidents are minor incidents, Premjayantha said.

He was addressing a UPFA press briefing in Colombo yesterday. Minister Premajayantha said according to police, there are only 12 incidents of election law violations.

“All 95 incidents were reported during eight weeks and in the North Central Provincial Council, 150 incidents reported within five weeks. Twenty six percent of the total population of Sri Lanka live in the Western Province and it is around 380,000,” the Minister said.

Minister Premajayantha said a former member of the ‘Cafe’ is contesting for the Western Provincial Council this time.

“This shows how ‘independent’ Cafe is. The Elections Commissioner has assured all political parties that he will prevent persons from voting in two polling stations. This problem is not new and it was there during the past 20 years,” the Minister said. The UNP Chairman has made a very significant statement. He had told that Prabhakaran is suffering now because he prevented the Tamil people from voting. The real meaning is Prabhakaran will be safe and doing fine if he had allowed the opposition leader to win at that time. Unfortunately Prabhakaran is not in a position to hear this statement because he is running for his life, Premajayantha said.

“There is no UNP official to hold a press conference at the moment. No party leader, Chairman or General Secretary is addressing the media and it shows how much interest the party has in winning the Western Provincial Council Election,” the Minister said.