- Committee appointed consisting teachers, principals, civil society, political party reps., journos, professionals
- Comm. to study potential candidates & recommend most suitable person
A group of Tamil political parties has appointed a committee to decide on a common Tamil candidate for the upcoming Presidential Election, according to the Thamil Makkal Thesiya Kuttani (TMTK) Leader and Opposition Parliamentarian, C.V. Wigneswaran.
It was recently reported that Tamil political parties are going to field a common Presidential candidate, and that they are engaging in discussions on the matter.
When queried regarding developments of the programme, Wigneswaran told The Daily Morning that the relevant parties met a few days ago, where they decided to appoint a committee to select a suitable individual to be fielded as the Presidential candidate.
“This committee was formed comprising teachers, principals, civil society members, party representatives, journalists, and other professionals. The committee's task is to study potential candidates and recommend the most suitable person to represent the Tamil community in the Presidential Election”. When a potential candidate is decided, he said that the committee would reach out to them, engage in discussions and make a final decision on the matter.
On an earlier occasion, Wigneswaran said that the TMTK would endorse fielding a common candidate representing Tamil political parties, charging that the Tamil community had been let down every time that they supported Presidential candidates fielded by majority based political parties. Emphasising that fielding a Tamil candidate is necessary for them to bring out the Tamil community's issues, he said that the said candidate should be a person who can speak in Sinhala, so that they can tell the Sinhala masses what their issues are.
The frequent issues faced by the Tamil community include the lack of infrastructure facilities, the occupation of their lands by the military forces and State Departments, and the non-implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in full. Tamil community-based politicians have been charging that the majority community based politicians, including the Heads of State, are not interested in resolving such issues.