Shivajilingam responds to Sampanthan: no withdrawal without written assurance

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 13 November 2019, 09:13 GMT]
If the TNA Leader negotiates with Sajith Premadasa and secures a written assurance in which the SL presidential candidate commits to fulfil two specific demands, Tamil presidential candidate M.K. Shivajilingam was prepared to withdraw from the race for SL presidential candidate. However, such a move has not taken place, said Mr Shivajilingam in a comment to TamilNet on Wednesday. He was responding to Mr Sampanthan’s public appeal to Mr Shivajilingam to step down from the presidential race without any preconditions.



Shivajilingam said he wanted Mr Sampanthan to be accompanied by three named religious leaders from the North and the East during the negotiations.

The first condition to be met was an assurance on fully implementing the SL constitutional amendments, including the 13th Amendment and reintroducing the temporary merger of North-East, which the SL state had revoked after eighteen years of existence. That status quo must be reinstated, he said.

The other condition was an assurance that the ruling party would not insist or propose the unitary form of governance and that it would desist from projecting ‘foremost place’ to Buddhism in the new constitution-making process.

The Bishop of Trincomalee, Thenkayilai Aatheenam and Swami Chidakashananda of Chinmaya Mission Jaffna must take part in the negotiations, Mr Shivajilingam said.

However, there was no response from Mr Sampanthan so far, and that he has no intention to withdraw from the presidential elections, he told TamilNet.

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