Weerawansa, NFF won’t contest at General Election this time

Former Member of Parliament (MP) Wimal Weerawansa announced that he and his party, the National Freedom Front (NFF) will not contest in the 2024 Parliamentary Elections either in alliance or independently.

In a special announcement, Weerawansa mentioned that there is no doubt that some opposition forces who serve the imperialist agenda hostile to the country want to turn President Anura Kumara Dissanayake into a “Second Gotabaya”.

However, Weerawansa said that they responsibly assure the public that he and his party NFF will not contribute to making the country vulnerable to crisis by representing the imperialist agenda hostile to the country attempting to turn President Dissanayake into a second Gotabaya.

Citing reasons behind his decision to not contest the upcoming General Election, Weerawansa said:”Currently, the people of the country have elected the President through a free and peaceful election.

But the foreign forces hostile to Sri Lanka were not expecting such a situation, it was clear from the warnings issued by some countries to their countrymen who come to Sri Lanka as tourists before the Presidential Election in relation to the results of the Presidential Election. It is now no secret that their desire was to ignite the conflicts by taking advantage of the uncertain situations and eventually make the situation created in Bangladesh the fate of Sri Lanka.

But such a situation was avoided because the people of the country and government officials as well as the political forces deeply understood the warnings we presented with facts about it and acted accordingly. We are sincerely happy about that and express our thanks to the President as well as the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) for organising to prevent such a situation.

As a political movement rooted in anti-imperialism, which has a right to and respects the past heritage of the JVP, we are bound to protect the mandate that the President had received that put him in power and stand up for the aspirations of the people who created that mandate.

In that situation, the establishment of a government with a simple majority through the General Election becomes a precondition for facing the above-mentioned crisis. It limits the bargaining power of separatist and religious extremist groups with the government.

In this type of scenario, the unrepresented forces in the government and the forces known as the opposition are forced to choose one of two roles.

The first is to play an advantageous role to the imperialist agenda as the traditional opposition. The second, according to our reading, is the role of guiding and lobbying the government to prevent derailment by representing public expectations.

There is a possibility that some parties who impose psychological barriers on national forces may define that role as supporting the government.

We have no objection to that and when compared to that challenge and the majority public opinion in the country, it is our political reading that the role outside the parliament should be more important and powerful than the role played in the parliament.

Also, by playing the role of the traditional party in the Parliamentary Election battle, we think that creating a conflict between the majority of people’s expectations and our expectations is a negative action compared to the final goal.”

“Therefore, we very responsibly inform the people of the country that the NFF as a political party will not compete in the upcoming Parliamentary Elections either in alliance or independently”, Weerawansa added.

Former MP Wimal Weerawansa has forwarded copies of his announcement to the Maha Sangha, the Chairman of the Election Commission and all political parties.

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