srilanka1998
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Sri Lanka to vote for new president on November 17
[ Reuters ] [ 11:20 GMT, Sep. 19, 2005 ]
Sri Lanka will vote for a new president on November 17, the island's election secretariat said on Monday, a poll analysts say centers on two issues: how to cement peace with Tamil Tiger rebels and how to manage the economy. Left-of-center Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is set to face off against his right-of-center predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, in a vote considered too close to call. Rajapakse has aligned himself with hardline Marxists and Buddhist monks demanding a tough line in a peace bid with the Tigers. Business leaders and investors are betting on a win by Wickremesinghe, seen as more market friendly and more likely to seal a peace deal.
There is no place for moderates
[ TamilNet ] [ 14:48 GMT, Sep. 19, 2005 ]
Even as his party leader and incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunga wrapped herself in the tenets of liberalism whilst addressing the United Nations last week, her party's candidate for her succession, Mahinda Rajapakse, continued to tread an unabashedly Sinhala ultra-nationalist platform at home. In the past two weeks, Mr. Rajapakse has nailed his colours - a deep shade of saffron - to the mast by signing electoral alliances with the Marxist-cum-Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi perumana (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU). Whilst he had always been known as a devout Buddhist, Rajapakse has sent a shockwave through Sri Lanka's minority communities by firmly grasping the ethno-religious standard of political (Sinhala) Buddhism. Apart from an unequivocal rejection in the two alliance documents of the key conceptual elements of the peace process, he is espousing a distinctly Sinhala-first rhetoric: '(The Tigers) must realise that we have to satisfy the Sinhalese people in the majority. Without them we can't move forward.
[ Reuters ] [ 11:20 GMT, Sep. 19, 2005 ]
Sri Lanka will vote for a new president on November 17, the island's election secretariat said on Monday, a poll analysts say centers on two issues: how to cement peace with Tamil Tiger rebels and how to manage the economy. Left-of-center Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is set to face off against his right-of-center predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, in a vote considered too close to call. Rajapakse has aligned himself with hardline Marxists and Buddhist monks demanding a tough line in a peace bid with the Tigers. Business leaders and investors are betting on a win by Wickremesinghe, seen as more market friendly and more likely to seal a peace deal.
There is no place for moderates
[ TamilNet ] [ 14:48 GMT, Sep. 19, 2005 ]
Even as his party leader and incumbent President Chandrika Kumaratunga wrapped herself in the tenets of liberalism whilst addressing the United Nations last week, her party's candidate for her succession, Mahinda Rajapakse, continued to tread an unabashedly Sinhala ultra-nationalist platform at home. In the past two weeks, Mr. Rajapakse has nailed his colours - a deep shade of saffron - to the mast by signing electoral alliances with the Marxist-cum-Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi perumana (JVP) and the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU). Whilst he had always been known as a devout Buddhist, Rajapakse has sent a shockwave through Sri Lanka's minority communities by firmly grasping the ethno-religious standard of political (Sinhala) Buddhism. Apart from an unequivocal rejection in the two alliance documents of the key conceptual elements of the peace process, he is espousing a distinctly Sinhala-first rhetoric: '(The Tigers) must realise that we have to satisfy the Sinhalese people in the majority. Without them we can't move forward.