PA CELEBRATIONS (99 Aug 18)
The PA government completes five years on Thursday the 19th and the SLFP has decided to celebrate the event with a massive rally on Saturday the 21st in Kolomba. The government seems to have ignored the threats from the LTTE, they always claim to be present when they want to ban the rallies of the opposition parties.
Mr. Alavi Moulana, the local government minister, has said that they expect 300,000 people to come to Kolomba for the celebrations. It is well known that people do not come on their own to these meetings organised by the two main parties. The party organisers, the government departments and private companies are "advised" to bring people for these tamashas.
However, it is learnt that the four leftist parties in the PA have decided not participate as parties in the fifth anniversary celebrations. As someone has pointed out, had they participated they would have been drowned in the SLFP rally and they have saved the day by deciding to boycott the celebrations.