NDF candidate working towards personal political agenda - SB

Lakshmi de Silva

National Democratic Front candidate Sarath Fonseka at the time he was the Army Commander began working towards a personal political agenda as military victories against terrorists were being won by the armed forces, former SLFP and UNP Minister S.B. Dissanayake said yesterday.

Addressing the UPFA press conference at the Mahaveli Centre, he said at that stage Fonseka started talks with leaders of the UNP and other political parties even though he was wearing a military uniform. Fonseka was driven by mad ambition for power and vindictiveness against President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his family, he added.

There were other personalities who were coming to help Fonseka’s campaign. One was former President Chandrika Kumaratunga who had supported UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe during the last presidential election and former Chief Justice Sarath Silva. If Kumaratunga comes on the political platform, Fonseka would lose the little votes he could get.

The UNP or the JVP do not have the same voter bases they had before, he said. The JVP voter base had declined to about 240,000 and the UNP rank and file disillusioned with the party leadership’s decision were also moving away from the party and were supporting President Rajapaksa today.

The JVP had forgotten how the UNP captured their founder leader Rohana Wijeweera and how he was put into the crematorium alive and murdered, Dissanayake said.

They have also forgotten the UNP torture chambers where young JVP members in their teens were hanged by their legs and tortured, he noted.

Dissanayake said Fonseka’s campaign was being conducted by the JVP who were preparing the propaganda posters and other logistics but today they would hang on to anything to be able to face future elections as they cannot contest parliamentary elections alone and win more than three seats in the whole country.

Asked why he crossed over to the SLFP after deserting the party in 2001 and joining the UNP, Dissanayake said it was like coming back home to his own political party. He was invited to rejoin by many SLFP leaders in the recent past but he decided to support President Rajapaksa as he did not have any political ambition of becoming a party leader any more, he said.