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Fortune 500 fund-raising SLFP dinner aimed at PC polls By Harindra
Vidanage The Rs. 2,500-per-head
dinner at the Taj was attended by an elite group of about 500, including
prominent local businessmen and some Thai businessmen who had accompanied
their prime minister on his visit to Sri Lanka. President Kumaratunga
headed the guest list at the dinner organized by the party's women's'
wing headed by former deputy minister Pavitra Wanniarachchi. Among other prominent or politically interesting diners were Laugf's gas owner W. K. H. Wegapitiya, motor racer Dilantha Malagamuwa, Ceylon Carriers managing director Udaya Nanayakkara, Nimal Perera who is a brother of well-known casino owner turned stock-market player Dhammika Perera, and senior managers of Odel Fashion House. Party sources said Friday's fundraiser was the first of many aimed at boosting party coffers for the provincial elections. The elections to the Wayamba PC are scheduled for January but there is speculation that the President was planning to hold elections to all provincial councils within the next few months. The PA won the
last Wayamba elections but the poll went down in notoriety for wide-scale
rigging and intimidation. They said Opposition
Leader Mahinda Rajapakse and Chief Whip Mangala Samaraweera were
playing the key role in working out strategies and alliances for
the poll. Meanwhile,
President Kumaratunga has cracked the whip on some of her MPs going
on a foreign study tour with ruling UNF MPs, a tour funded by the
Inter-Parliamentary Union and the UNDP. Speaker Joseph Michael Perera said he had not been informed of PA members keeping out of the tour and if it was confirmed the whole tour of Canada, Germany and South Africa might have to be called off. The main purpose of the tour was to study how the parliamentary committee systems functioned in those countries. But the President is reportedly insisting that electoral reforms must come before the strengthening of parliamentary committees. |
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