Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party split over upcoming presidential election

COLOMBO: The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka's main Tamil party, has suffered a blow with its chair S Sritharan’s decision to endorse P Ariyanethran who is contesting the island nation's presidential election as the Tamil minority’s common candidate.

Sritharan on Thursday publicly backed Ariyanethran who had been asked to show cause by the TNA for submitting his nomination to contest the September 21 presidential election.

Sritharan had presided over the Politburo meeting of the TNA last week which had decided to take disciplinary action against Ariyanethran.

Sritharan was elected as the TNA’s main group Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) leader in January this year but his appointment was challenged in court by another section of the party over alleged irregularities at the intra-party election to appoint him.

The TNA is yet to make its stand official on which of the main candidates they would support.

TNA senior leader MA Sumanthiran said it would be counterproductive for the Tamils to field a common Tamil candidate instead of supporting one of the frontrunners representing the majority Sinhalese.

However, the TNA support to anyone would hinge on their pledges to address Tamil concerns, he said. They are to continue their talks with the main candidates.

About 2.2 million of the 17.1 million voters come from the Tamil regions in the north and east provinces.

A record 39 candidates were in the fray in the presidential elections. However, Idroos Mohamed Ilyas, 79, an independent candidate from the north-western Puttalam district died last night from a heart attack while he was being taken to a hospital, his family said.

The election commission officials said his name would not be removed from the ballot paper despite his death.

Incumbent president Ranil Wickremesinghe, the main opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, and the leader of the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Anura Kumara Dissanayake are the front runners.