Sihala Urumaya to field Buddhist monks

[TamilNet, Sunday, 15 February 2004, 14:41 GMT]
The Sinhala nationalist Sihala Urumaya (SU) has decided to contest all the electoral districts in the island in the forthcoming parliamentary general election including northeast province and majority of SU candidates would be selected from the Buddhist clergy, said its Propaganda Secretary Mr.Champika Ranawake.

The lists of SU candidates would be released on Monday, he added.

The election symbol of the SU is bow and arrow. The first election propaganda meeting of the SU would be held at Borella in Colombo the day after the nomination day, which falls on February 24th, SU spokesperson said.

He said the prospect of winning parliamentary seats by the SU at the forthcoming election is brighter than that in the last 2001 general election.

At the 2001 general election the SU only polled 50,665 votes and that was 0.57 % of the total polled votes and failed to win single seat.

In the 2000 general election though SU failed to win single parliamentary seat but it was able to get a parliamentary seat through the national list, sources said.