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With barely five days to go for the crucial Presidential elections in Sri Lanka, incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa has vowed not to allow re-emergence of the LTTE that was defeated in May last year.
Addressing various election rallies in Southern Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa said he was confident that the people would never allow the ugly head of terrorism to rise again or attempts to divide the country.
The president asserted he would not allow "any force" to revitalise the LTTE on Sri Lankan soil in the future.
"In addition to defeating terrorism we also launched massive development programs throughout the country," he said ahead of the January 26 Presidential elections. Rajapaksa also charged his main challenger, opposition consensus candidate General Sarath Fonseka, with entering into a secret agreement with pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance's parliamentary group leader R Sampanthan.
The ruling United People's Freedom Alliance had earlier alleged the two of entering into a pact to re-merge North and Eastern Sri Lanka, a charge that has been stoutly denied by Fonseka and other senior Opposition leaders. Rajapaksa charged that "another secret pact, hatched with the intention of propagating divisions within the country, was afoot."
Meanwhile, Sampanthan has refuted the charges of any such agreement with Fonseka. "Particularly, in regard to evolution of a political settlement, the national question, I deny there has been any agreement between me and General Sarath Fonseka," Sampanthan told reporters yesterday.
"We are all aware of the performance of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in the past four years of his term in office. We have all been disappointed with his performance," the Tamil National Alliance leader said.
During his address at election rallies, Rajapaksa said that elements who failed to divide the country through military means were striving to win over their desired objectives in other forms and the masses should be aware of such "conspiracies".
The President said he would never allow subjugation of the freedom and democracy achieved by the sacrifices of thousands of precious lives. The time has come for all groups of people to forget party or colour differences and unite to develop the country, he said. Rajapaksa also called on traders, who were creating an artificial shortage of essential commodities by hiding them to achieve narrow and petty political mileage, to bring out their stocks "as the people cannot be taken for a ride by this type of mean tricks ahead of the elections."