Harin calls for united effort to protect ballot boxes

Thursday, 18 September 2014 00:05 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

As campaigning ended for the Uva Provincial Council election last night, United National Party chief ministerial hopeful Harin Fernando has called on all Opposition parties to band together and protect the ballot boxes on polling day. “We are on the cusp of a historic election. The Government never thought the fight would come down to the wire. It is incumbent upon the Opposition to ensure that the franchise is protected until the results are out,” Fernando told a handful of reporters at his Badulla residence last morning.

He called on the JVP and the Sarath Fonseka-led Democratic Party to stand together until the last vote is secured and counted. An upbeat UNP chief ministerial candidate said the ruling UPFA Government had never expected that an opposition Parliamentarian would quit to contest the provincial elections. “The swing towards the UNP is now a top that will not stop spinning,” a buoyant Fernando told the Daily FT, after the UNP managed to draw massive crowds at its penultimate major rally in Bandarawela town on Tuesday night. Fernando said the UNP had made massive strides, particularly in the Badulla District. The fractured and divided UNP was coming together in the face of this massive public swing towards the Opposition, the young politician from Badulla added. “You see it in our leaders. You see the energy now, even in the way they walk and talk. Even those who were cut away from the party are coming together now as the wave grows,” he said. Pix by Pradeep Pathirana

Sri Lanka Transport Board buses decorated in blue and bearing UPFA chief ministerial candidate Shasheendra Rajapaksa’s number 15 used to transport supporters to election rally in Wellawaya at 3 PM on Wednesday, where President Mahinda Rajapaksa was to address crowds