The United Left Front party membership is urging their party leaders to reconsider their decision to support JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s presidential bid, the Sunday Observer learns.
Members from different parts of the island including former regions that were considered bastions of LSSP leader N.M. Perera including Yatiyantota and Ratnapura have urged the party leadership to lend the party’s strength to the candidate contesting under the swan symbol, to defeat the ‘main evil’ at the November 2019 presidential election, highly placed sources told the Sunday Observer.
The call to support the common alliance candidate was not based on preferred personalities, and the membership is in full agreement with the United Left Front getting onboard with the JVP’s policies in the longer term, the sources added. Speaking to the Sunday Observer, UNF Parliamentarian and United Left Front member Dr Jayampathy Wickremaratne confirmed that there had been calls for the party to change its decision. “That request is being seriously considered.
And in accordance with Sama Samaja tradition, we will discuss the issue and make a decision internally,” Dr Wickremaratne added. Sources said the party was likely to extend support to Sajith Premadasa at the November poll, provided the leadership decides to reverse its original decision to support Dissanayake’s candidacy. The United Left Front was formed by members of the Lanka Samasamaja Party (LSSP), the Communist Party and the Democratic Left Front who left their parties that have been aligned to the increasingly neo-conservative and right-wing nationalist SLFP led coalition. The United Left Front supported the candidacy of President Maithripala Sirisena in 2014. President Sirisena also contested the election under the symbol of the swan.