TNA faces rebellion over Tamil candidate

Upcountry People’s Front to back President
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), saddled with an internal rebellion after its leader R. Sampanthan and two others went to Vienna last Sunday without a decision on the party’s stand at the forthcoming Presidential election, is now expected to take up the matter once again with the return of the trio yesterday.
On the eve of their departure, 17 members of the TNA who met in Colombo on December 8 and 9 were split three ways, with a majority of seven wanting to field a Tamil candidate, five wanting to boycott the election altogether and five requesting the party to support the candidate most receptive to their aspirations.

This resulted in at least two members publicly rebelling. M.K. Sivajilingam handed in nominations on December 17. He was accompanied to the Election Secretariat by N. Srikantha to hand in the nominations. Both are members of TELO, one of four parties that make up the TNA.

Asked about rumours that they were about to be expelled by the TELO for their act of defiance, a defiant Srikantha said those stories were circulated by interested parties, but it was all rubbish. “In fact, four MPs of the TELO including its leader are for fielding a candidate from TNA and we have also got our entire Jaffna District Committee too behind us,” he said.

Srikantha identified the seven TNA MPs who are for fielding a Tamil candidate as himself, M.K. Sivajilingam, Selvam Adaikalanathan (TELO Leader), Vino Noharathalingam, Thangeswari Kathiraman, Dr. Thomas William and C. Chandranehru.

“It is still not too late for the alliance to rally around Sivajilingam as the party candidate,” he said adding that at least two other MPs are ready to campaign for him already. TNA has 22 members in Parliament, but four have not attended the recent meetings. They are said to be abroad.

Pathmini Sithamparanathan, who was in the group which wanted a boycott of the poll on grounds their people are yet in a state of shock and are only interested in rebuilding their lives said the party will arrive at a decision after further consultations with the major candidates and studying their manifestos.

Srikantha, however, countered that it was wrong to either boycott or support one candidate against another as in the past. According to their mandate the best option was to field their own candidate to reflect the aspirations of the Tamil people.

Sithamparanathan also conceded earlier that neither of the two major candidates had addressed their issues in the past and they were only now talking about making concessions to Tamils.
Meanwhile, UPFA coalition partner Upcountry People’s Front will decide today which candidate to back at a meeting of its general body in Talawakelle.

A party insider who did not wish to be quoted hinted that they are likely to back President Rajapaksa as he had given a favourable response to their demands when their leader P. Chandrasekeran met the President last week. (RA)