Sinister plan on polls eve

Lakshmi de Silva

*Moves to block voting

*Violence against UPFA a precursor

*88-89 type operation bared

There was a move to rob or buy National Identity Cards of voters on January 24 or 25 to prevent voters exercising their franchise. We have informed the Elections Commissioner and the Inspector General of Police to take action to deploy mobile police patrols to prevent miscreants resorting to the same tactics adopted by subversive elements during the spate of violence in 1988-90 period, UPFA General Secretary and Education Minister Susil Premajayanth said yesterday.

Addressing the UPFA press conference at the Mahaveli Centre he said the same elements that were experienced in this violation of the law and human rights were now members of a registered political party.

They had cut the fingers of those who exercised the vote and killed election officers. “Apart from that there had been incidents of violence against the UPFA at Madurankuliya, and Anamaduwa where two of our supporters were killed and 10 other supporters were hospitalized.” There were some more incidents of violence at different parts of the country and those who had the experience of violence have brought violence into the election campaign. He said there was a chain of events coming down from two to three years to destabilize the UPFA Government.

The first was when the foreign aid group met in Galle to discuss aid to Sri Lanka the report of the Parliamentary Commission (COPE) was published in a newspaper though it was not officially released ,to prejudice the aid group.

Though the COPE findings of corruption was about UNP Ministers elements opposed to the Government attempted to use it for their own advantage. The second attempt was made during 2007 to defeat the budget 2008 in Parliament and very large sums of money from foreign sources came into the country to topple the Government.

The third was the case of JNP parliamentarian Mohamed Muzzamil who was offered a bribe of Rs 30 million and the same elements with the backing of certain foreign powers were still trying to destabilize the country. Answering a question he said it was decided to hold the Presidential Election two years ahead of the due date to defeat the anti-national forces and re-elect President Mahinda Rajapaksa for a second term.

The first election slogan of the JVP was that they would abolish the Executive Presidency but former Chief Justice Sarath N Silva who was in the Opposition Presidential election campaign says that the powers of the executive presidency would be curbed. The abolition of the executive presidency has now become a mere political slogan of the Opposition he also said.

Continuing Premajayanth said that there was an attempt to tell the public that there was no agreement between candidate Sarath Fonseka and the Tamil National Alliance Leader R. Sampanthan.