Tamil parties' 13 proposals “will stand forever”Wigneswaran

The 13 proposals put forward by a collective of five Tamil political parties, to candidates of the upcoming presidential election, “will stand forever”, as they lay down the immediate and long term requests of the Tamils to resolve the ethnic issue, former Northern Province (NP) Chief Minister (CM) C.V. Wigneswaran told the Sunday Times.

In an interview at his home in Jaffna, Mr Wigneswaran also insisted that he was not in favour of All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) Leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam's call for Tamils to boycott the presidential election. He added that, if the parties failed to reach a consensus on who they should back, they would give everyone a free hand and vote for whoever they wanted to.

The five Tamil parties which presented the proposals are the ITAK, TELO, PLOTE EPRLF and the Tamil Makkal Kootani (TMK) led by Mr Wigneswaran himself.

The former CM insisted that what they had put forward were not “conditions” but “requests.”

He said he was not surprised that the 2 main candidates had already rejected them, because, if one party was to speak about it, the other would use it to its advantage to get the better of the Sinhalese vote. “This has been the pattern that has been going on for the last so many years. But for how long is this pattern of trying to make us the pariahs of Sri Lanka going to continue?”

Mr Wigneswaran said his impression was that the parties that made up the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had already decided to back NDF candidate Sajith Premadasa, though they have so far not declared it. The former CM however, said his party and several others were of the view that one could not distinguish between any of the candidates.

“As far as the TMK is concerned, we have an open mind. At the end of the day, whoever becomes president, we will have to go and tell them the same thing. I have no difficulty working with anyone, as we have not been partisan in this matter,” he noted.