Ex-minister Eran Wickramaratne says his party will give its fullest support to hold the anticipated Parliamentary Elections if health authorities give the green light.
Wickramaratne who will be contesting on the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) ticket led by United National Party (UNP) Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa, however said, the election should not come at the cost of the lives of the people.
“I am concerned about the integrity of the data we have received regarding the pandemic. So far, we have only one source from which we are getting this information from,” he said.
The Government has been at the forefront of curtailing the spread of the virus. It is also releasing daily statistics. By Thursday there were nearly 1,470 confirmed Covid-19 cases and 10 deaths.
Director General of Health Services, Dr. Anil Jasinghe said the process to hold the elections can be commenced. Appearing on national TV he also said that public servants should not be dragged into political arguments.He will hand in a set of guidelines to be followed for the elections.
“Elections is an important part of a democratic process and we want it to be held but because of the pandemic people may be affected by it. Also, statistics are becoming alarming. People’s lives come first and everything else is secondary,” Wickramaratne said adding that the environment should be conducive for an election to be held.
The reported Covid-19 clusters are reported from the naval forces, returnees from affected countries, and quarantine centres. The former minister says this could not be the true picture as there are deaths with unknown causes reported in the island.He also said that the management of the pandemic has been ‘chaotic’ with the economy suffering one of the biggest blows.
He said that roughly eight million make up the country’s total workforce.One and a half million of them are in the public sector, about three million in the private sector, and the rest are self-employed, daily wage earners or contractors. The third category, he said, was the worst hit.
“Soon there will be hundreds and thousands of job losses,” Wickramaratne said adding that there needs to be a much more systematic approach to handle the economic impact of Covid-19 in Sri Lanka.
He also paid tribute to the first responders- health workers, police and the Security Forces- for their work to keep the pandemic at bay.
As the country is debating if and when the Parliamentary Elections can be held, the Opposition is also struggling with an internal problem. Some members are risking their UNP membership to contest under a new banner.
A letter by UNP leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, was circulated among some of its members stating that their party membership was suspended as a result of their contesting under the SJB ticket.
Wickramaratne has not received this letter but he said they will have to wait and see what happens.
“We will know about the suspension of party memberships when the UNP Working Committee is summoned,” Wickramaratne said adding that the vast majority of the SJB is in the Working Committee and to suspend the membership will call for the agreement of the majority on this Committee.
“But the Committee has not been summoned for quite some time now,” the former minister said.