Govt. has no option but calls for polls in 2014 - Tissa Attanayake

UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake said yesterday that it was only after party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe gave a public assurance to establish a law-abiding, just society devoid of violence, corruption and malpractices in 2014 that many eminent astrologers have come out with predictions that he (Wickremesinghe) stood a bigger chance of being elected to power next year.

He was responding to a question by the Sunday Island on how presidential or parliamentary elections could be held prematurely in 2014 and whether astrological predictions prompted Wickremesinghe to call for polls not scheduled for 2014.

He said that the UNP leader is confident that his intensive campaigning coupled with the waning support of the masses for an increasingly unpopular government, the President would be left with no alternative but other than to go for elections prematurely in 2014.When asked on the selections of candidates for proposed elections to the Northern Provincial Council scheduled for September this year, Attanayake said that the party had made preparations and is ready to make final selections after elections are officially announced .

"That was why the UNP launched its campaign of reorganizing and restructuring the UNP and recruiting new blood at grassroot level throughout the country sometime ago so that by 2014 we could bring public pressure to bear on the government", he said.