SL’s main Tamil party split over upcoming election

Colombo: The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Sri Lanka’s main Tamil party, has suffered a blow with its chair S Sritharan’s decision to endorse P Ariyanethran who is contesting the island nation’s presidential election as the Tamil minority’s common candidate.

Sritharan on Thursday publicly backed Ariyanethran who had been asked to show cause by the TNA for submitting his nomination to contest the September 21 presidential election.

Sritharan had presided over the Politburo meeting of the TNA last week which had decided to take disciplinary action against Ariyanethran.

Sritharan was elected as the TNA’s main group Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) leader in January this year but his appointment was challenged in court by another section of the party over alleged irregularities at the intra-party election to appoint him.

The TNA is yet to make its stand official on which of the main candidates they would support.

TNA senior leader MA Sumanthiran said it would be counterproductive for the Tamils to field a common Tamil candidate instead of supporting one of the frontrunners representing the majority

Sinhalese.

However, the TNA support to anyone would hinge on their pledges to address Tamil concerns, he said.