Sri Lanka ruling party to solve policy dispute

Sri Lanka's ruling party has appointed a high level committee to thrash out a policy difference between party leader President Chandrika Kumaratunga and the party 's presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapakse ahead of the presidential poll.

A senior Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) source said that the party's central committee had a somewhat stormy session here Friday discussing Rajapakse's electoral pacts with the leftist JVP and the nationalist JHU parties.

Kumaratunga has publicly expressed her displeasure on Rajapakse ' a deals and called them a breach of the SLFP's stated policies.

The SLFP source said that Kumaratunga appointed a 9-member committee comprising senior ministers and provincial governors.

The committee has been mandated to formulate the policy document for Rajapakse.

While preserving the SLFP's own policies, the policy document will recognize the policies of parties who had entered deals with Rajapakse in a bid to win the Nov. 17 poll.

Having settled the dispute Kumaratunga agreed to address Rajapakse's provincial level rallies, the party source said.

Kumaratunga who cannot contest a third time for presidency chose Rajapakse as the party's nominee.

But she is unhappy with Rajapakse's pacts with the two hard- line parties who are opposed to a federal solution being looked at as an ultimate settlement to the country's separatist armed conflict.

Source: Xinhua