Wimal’s NFF under UPFA banner

By Rathindra Kuruwita, Kushali Atukorale and Santhush Fernando
Firebrand Wimal Weerawansa-led National Freedom Front (NFF) will compete under the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) ticket, Education Minister Susil Premajayanth said. He added that the two parties agreed to compete together after a series of discussions.

“NFF has agreed to compete with the UPFA after a series of discussions. They will definitely compete with us and we will fine tune the agreement in the next few days,” he said.

Meanwhile, NFF sources also confirmed that they have agreed to compete under the UPFA banner.

“The NFF will compete with the government because we feel that if the UPFA government falls, it would adversely affect the military campaign,” he said. “There is a systematic campaign being carried out to destabilise the country by toppling the government. The NFF will not allow anything to affect the war effort,” he added.

The Education Minister also added that many of the constituent political parties have also agreed to compete with the UPFA. The Central and North Western UPFA nomination committees will meet tomorrow and they will decide on the Chief Ministerial and other candidates, he added.

“We have already made allocations for the constituent parties for the forthcoming elections. NFF and CWC have decided to compete with the UPFA and some of the constituent parties including the JHU will get back to us after meeting their CCs,” Premajayanth said. “We are sure that we will get a positive response from them,” he added.

Meanwhile, the main opposition UNP has also appointed a nomination committee during the working committee meeting held last Monday. UNP Media Spokesman Gayantha Karunathilake said they have already decided to nominate S.B. Dissanayaka as their Chief Ministerial candidate for the Central Province.

“Candidates for the provincial council elections will be selected by the nomination committee but S.B. Dissanayaka is already being nominated as the Chief Ministerial Candidate for the Central Provincial Council,” he said. “We have not yet decided who will be the Chief Ministerial Candidate for the North Western Province but that will be done in the coming days,” he added.

The JHU will be contesting under the UPFA ticket, if they decide to compete in the elections said JHU Media Spokesman Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe.