The UNP said yesterday that the joint opposition’s common candidate would be selected by consensus after it had formed a broad coalition of parties committed to the abolition of the executive presidency.
“We have not yet decided who our Presidential candidate will be”, Senior UNP MP Joseph Michael Perera said, adding that the party could not do so because in the first place an election had not been announced and secondly the common candidate would have to be picked by the Joint Opposition Front.
MP Perera revealed that the UNP was talking to all opposition parties including the JVP and the Democratic Party besides trade unions with a view to forging a strong front that could not only defeat President Mahinda Rajapaksa but also restore parliamentary system of government.
Each of the parties had its own policies and aspirations which had to be taken into consideration. Their ideas and proposals would have to be considered and where possible incorporated into a Memorandum of Understanding, the MP added.
He said since the UNP was the largest party among those it was talking with, it would naturally have a bigger say, but that did not mean it would railroad them into toeing its line. “Our objective is to rid the country of the executive presidency which in the wrong hands as witnessed under the Rajapaksa regime could prove disastrous. As such we cannot adopt a dictatorial attitude.”
Perera said that the executive presidency had been the cause of the mounting problems that the country had faced in the post war era. It had to be scrapped if democracy and the rule of law were to be reestablished, MP Perera stressed, observing that national security could be maintained under any system of government.
By Zacki Jabbar
Source: The Island (Sri Lanka)
