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Tussle in UNP for Colombo Mayor’s post
The Opposition UNP which controls the majority of the local government councils around the country appointed a Nomination Board to vet prospective candidates as a major controversy has arisen over the biggest of them all - the Colombo Municipal Council.

This week, two Colombo city-based MPs, Milinda Moragoda (Colombo East and Colombo West) and Mohammed Maharoof (Colombo Central) descended on party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and demanded he appoint a former Mayor, Sirisena Cooray for the top-job.

They had also taken senior party stalwart M.H. Mohamed (Borella), himself a one-time city father, with them to apply pressure on the party leader, and later claimed that Mr. Wickremesinghe had agreed to nominate Mr. Cooray as the party's choice for the Mayoralty.

Mr. Mohamed, however, says that he did not support Mr. Cooray's candidature, while Mr. Maharoof insists that the three of them fully supported Mr. Cooray for the post.

When contacted by The Sunday Times, Mr. Mohamed denied that he was supporting ‘any candidate’, and declined to comment on his meeting with the party leader on the issue this week.

Party sources said that the Moragoda-Maharoof combine ‘ambushed’ the party leader and threatened him with withdrawing their support unless Mr. Cooray was made the party's Mayoral choice, an allegation denied by their aides. They say that the Moragoda-Maharoof duo only made a ‘request’.

According to them, a suggestion to select the candidate who gets the highest number of preferential votes was scuttled on the basis that Mr. Cooray who now lives in Adelaide, Australia will contest only on the condition that he be the sole choice for Mayor of Colombo.

Mr. Cooray was a UNP mayor from 1983 to 1993 , and party secretary under President Ranasinghe Premadasa, but left the party in 1994 following differences with Mr. Wickremesinghe's leadership. He later contested Parliamentary elections as leader of the Puravesi Peramuna (Citizens Front), but returned to the UNP fold at last November's Presidential elections to support Mr. Wickremesinghe's candidature.

These sources said that following an agreement on party reforms a fortnight ago following the defeat of Mr. Wickremesinghe, it was agreed that party deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya would run the forthcoming local government elections.

Mr. Jayasuriya was not available for comment on this issue. A separate nomination board on which Mr. Wickremesinghe, Mr. Jayasuriya, the party secretary and deputy secretary, Jayawickrama Perera and P. Dayaratna are among the members would pick the candidates for the country-wide polls, but party sources said that the Mayor's post for the different municipal councils would be a decision left to the party leader in consultation with the deputy leader who was to manage the campaign.

Several others have also thrown their hat into the Colombo Mayor's ring, among them deputy mayor Azad Sally, former mayor Omar Kamil, and one time Aviation Authority head Hemasiri Fernando. Incumbent Mayor Prasanna Gunawardena has also expressed his interest in retaining his post.

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