Sri Lanka monk party to support ruling party's presidential candidate

Sri Lanka's all Buddhist monk party JHU, or the Heritage Party, announced Tuesday that they have decided to support the ruling party's presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapakse in the forthcoming election.

Venerable Athuraliye Rathana, a leading legislator for the JHU, said that they would extend support to Prime Minister Rajapakse and the two parties would sign an agreement in the central town of Kandy on Sept. 13.

The JHU's pledge came closely on the heel of support announced by the leftist JVP, or the People's Liberation Front on Monday.

The JHU made a sensational entry into local politics by securing over 5 percent of the popular vote and nine seats in the parliamentary election held in April 2004.

Both the JVP and the JHU are bitterly opposed to any negotiations with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to end the country 's separatist armed conflict.

Both parties have dubbed the ongoing Norwegian-backed cease-fire and the stalled peace negotiations with the Tigers as a sell-out of the majority Sinhala community.

Analysts say the support coming from extremist nationalist parties would make Rajapakse's task of negotiating peace with the Tigers a difficult task.

Source: Xinhua