Government to woo Opposition voters

Lakshmi de Silva

The Presidential election once again proved there was vibrant democracy in the country. President Mahinda Rajapaksa polled nearly 60 percent of the votes while the NDF candidate Sarath Fonseka polled approximately 40 percent of the vote, SLFP General Secretary and Agriculture and Mahaweli Development Minister Maithripala Sirisena said yesterday.

It was accepted by all including the Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and the diplomatic corps that the election was free and fair, he said.

Addressing a UPFA press conference at the BMICH, he said it was the objective of the Government to increase the near 60 percent voter base by winning over those who had voted for the Opposition candidate and during the coming days action will be taken by the Government to work hard to implement all the development and people friendly policies.

The SLFP headquarters was in disarray during the campaign of 2005 and President Mahinda Rajapaksa did not get the cooperation he needed.

But this time the party office fully supported the President in the election campaign.

We are well organized and we are taking steps to form the nomination committees and prepare the list of candidates for the next parliamentary election,” he said.

He said candidate Sarath Fonseka had accused the Government of poll rigging but his allegation comes from his lack of experience in politics. He said he had very large crowds coming for his meetings and he had believed they would all vote for him.

During the 1977 Parliamentary election very large crowds attended the meetings of Premier Sirimavo Bandaranaike but she lost the election to the UNP that won by a landslide majority.

He said both the UNP and the JVP faced a serious setback or erosion in this election but the JVP made a blunder though they had agreed with us on liberating the country from the terrorists.

However, the real winner in the opposition was UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as he found a person to stand in and lose the election. “However, we would like to tell the opposition political parties that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was the only leader acceptable to the people. Therefore, we would like to request the opposition political parties to join hands with us to work for the progress and development of the country” he noted.