SLMC to plan future political strategy

[TamilNet, Monday, 19 January 2004, 16:28 GMT]
Politburo of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), a constituent of the United National Front government will meet on January 23 at its headquarters "Darussalam" in Colombo to plan out its future political strategy in anticipation political developments likely to follow the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), SLMC sources said.

SLMC has decided to hold a full day discussion with party leaders at district, provincial and national levels on January 24 to decide the course of action to take under the present political situation. The discussion will be held at party headquarters Darussalam, sources said.

Key leaders of the SLMC held several important discussions during the weekend as Colombo political analysts expect prorogation of parliament followed by a cabinet reshuffle as a prelude to a snap general election with the signing of the MoU between the Sri Lanka Freedom party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, political sources said.

The SLMC high command has already announced that it would contest future elections whether it is provincial or parliamentary alone. SLMC would not form election alliance with any major party as in the last general election, party sources said.

At the last general election the SLMC signed an election pact with the United National Party (UNP) and fielded candidates in some districts under United National Front (UNF) label.

UNP is the major constituent of the ruling UNF.