PA to elect new leader

The Sri Lankan opposition Peoples Alliance (PA) was preparing to re-elect a new leader, customary practice for defeated parties following a loss at a general election.

The showdown is to come in the form of a contest for the post of leader of the parliamentary opposition, which goes to them for obtaining 77 seats, the party with the second largest number of seats.

The PA comprises a coalition of five parties – the Freedom Party (SLFP), the Trotskyite Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP),the Communist Party (CP), and the nationalist Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP).

The SLFP, headed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, being the major component of the alliance, will be most likely to nominate the new leader of the opposition.

Already, two members of parliament, former speaker and brother of President Kumaratunga, Anura Bandaranaike and former ports minister Mahinda Rajapakse have already thrown their hats into the ring.

The contenders are about the same age, in their early fifties and one-time best friends. Their respective fathers crossed over hand-in-hand in 1952 from the United National Party (UNP) and formed the SLFP.

When Anura Bandaranaike was having a leadership struggle within the SLFP with his sister, Rajapaksa squarely sided with the brother.

But the two drifted apart since Anura Bandaranaike left the SLFP founded by his late prime minister father Solemen Dias Bandaranaike, and joined the United National Party (UNP) government in 1994 to become a minister.

Rajapakse, a lawyer, represents the Beliatte seat in the southern Hambantota district. While Anura Bandaranaike was in the UNP, Rajapaksa began cultivating his own base within the SLFP.

He has, however, frequently complained that the party leadership, which has since 1952 remained unbroken with the Bandaranaike family, has sidelined him by not giving him important assignments.

He has now announced his candidature for the opposition leader's job in what appears to be a bid to break the monopoly of the Bandaranaikes on the party despite being invited by the new prime minister to join in a UNP-led national government.