The general secretary of the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) stated that the coalition would not allow a “diaspora festival” to be held, in response to questions about the year ahead.
UPFA General Secretary Susil Premjayantha told The Island that if the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, currently headed by Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, were to come to power, then a festival that was designed to engage with the Tamil diaspora would not be allowed to take place.
"We’ll not allow planned Diaspora festival later this year,” said Mr Premjayantha. “The question doesn’t arise as we’ll be in power."
The “diaspora festival” has also faced stiff opposition from the JHU, a party led by Buddhist monks, who labelled it a threat to national security and accused the UN Human Rights Council of funding the project.
See our earlier posts:
UNHRC rejects diaspora festival funding claim by JHU (23 Jun 2015)
Diaspora festival 'threat to national unity' - JHU (21 June 2015)
UNP coalition partner blocks compensation to injured LTTE members and objects to diaspora talks (11 June 2015)