Wednesday, 3 December 2014 00:02
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AFP: An influential party of Buddhist monks warned Tuesday of violence during Sri Lanka’s upcoming presidential election, two weeks after it defected from the coalition government.
The JHU, or National Heritage Party, said it feared President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime would resort to violence as it tried to cling to power.
The warning came as a private election monitoring group said there had already been several incidences of pre-election violence and accused police of inaction.
“This election has the potential to be one of the most violent,” said the JHU’s Udaya Gammanpila, a former provincial minister.“As the campaign picks up, so will the violence,” he added.
The JHU has just three seats in the 225-member parliament, but the monks are considered influential among the country’s majority Buddhist community.
The party campaigned for Rajapaksa to become president in 2005 and backed his re-election in 2010, but ditched him last month over governance issues.
On Tuesday the party entered a pact with the main opposition candidate, Maithripala Sirisena, who has promised to “restore rule of law” if he wins the 8 January poll, which Rajapaksa called two years ahead of schedule.
The private election monitoring group Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) says there have been at least eight serious polls-related incidents since Rajapaksa called the election two weeks ago.
