Elections to EU Parliament:

LTTE proxies defeated in Paris, London

EU Special Corr.

Paris - June 8 - French voters elected 78 MEPs for the EU Parliament including 14 each from the Green Party and the Socialists, but rejected outright the LTTE backed Tamil candidates who fielded under an independent group for the Ile de France district that includes Paris.

The EPP topped the list with 30 seats while the Liberals came fourth with six seats after the Greens and the Socialists. The Tamil origin French voters from Sri Lanka, Mauritius, East Africa and India cast their votes in favour of socialist and left parties.

The Tamil group backed by the front organizations of the LTTE was routed in the election. The Independent group headed by Jean Marie Julia from Pondicherry could not even get the votes of the French citizens of Pondicherry origin because the list included 18 Sri Lankan Tamils backed by the LTTE.

“Julia had a chance of getting elected if he had contested from a socialist party,” Joe Samuels, a Pondicherry Tamil in Paris said. “But our people rejected his list because it contained names of several LTTE supporters. Our people detest violence and they don’t want anybody who believes in violent politics”.

Julia’s independent list in the United Kingdom, the frontline Tamil candidate Jaani Jananayagam could not come among the first ten of the 8-member London electorate. While the Conservatives (3 seats) and Labour (2) seats topped the list with 479,037 votes and 372,590 votes respectively, Jananayagam, who contested as an independent could get only 50,014 votes, far below the last elected member of UKEP who polled 188,440.

“It is a very poor showing,” said Jacob Vasan, a Tamil youth leader from Luton. “Jaani, lost more Tamil votes than she could win over because of a her ‘I am the greatest’ attitude. She snubbed many Indians and people from friendly countries like Malaysia and Mauritius” including Elangovan Thambirajah, Rassou Santhi, Thevamanoharan Kandiah, Lewis Pulcheris, Mythili Kumaravelu, Thayapararasan Ramalinga, Seeralan Sivalogarani, Anthonipillai Singharajah, Thayapararasan nanthakumary, Amalathas Purvaneswary, Marakandu Wogeeswaran, Senathirajah Kaveendran and Vasanthi Rajasekaram.

Most of the Sri Lankan origin Tamil candidates either members or supporter activists of front organizations of the LTTE such as TCC, TYO, Thamil Sangham, TRO etc.

“It is a pity that Julia, a Pondicherry Tamil was rejected while four other independent candidates were elected,” Marian Sivaguru of Mauritius said. “The mistake he made was to include Sri Lankan Tamil nominees with dubious records”.