Opposition’s baseless allegations threaten political stability

Lakshmi DE SILVA

The Opposition alleged that the presidential election result as a fraud from the very beginning. They made allegation after allegation against the Government.

Their most severe allegation was of a sophisticated computer fraud. Even the leaders of other countries delayed their congratulatory messages to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on his victory even by an hour or a day due to this Opposition activity, Transport Minister and Cabinet spokesperson Dullas Alahapperuma said.

Addressing the weekly Cabinet press briefing at the Information Department auditorium yesterday, the Minister said the joint Opposition allegations created a threat to the political stability of the country.

Knowingly or unknowingly the Opposition had done the damage to the country which the LTTE did with arms, ammunition, suicide bombers. The LTTE terrorists attacked the economic hubs throughly dragging our economic growth to minus figures in 2004. But now the opposition was doing the same thing which the LTTE did, Alahapperuma explained.

The filing of an Election petition before court was a democratic right. But the Opposition had not made even a single reference to a sophisticated computer fraud in their petition. But their cry before the International Community was to attack our own country’s economic heart, he further said.

Answering a question about a statement made by UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake that the postal vote was rigged, the Minister said that postal vote was given to public servants on their own request and to say that it was rigged showed the ignorance of the UNP General Secretary. The high postal vote rate of 98.75 percent showed that the public servants were keen to cast their vote and since there was no terrorism and no people hiding in bunkers during the election, the high percentage was natural.