The minority parties are reluctant to offer support and there are attempts to put forward one candidate to represent all the Tamil parties. The two parties that would unconditionally support President Chandrika seem to be the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and Hill Country’s Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC). But the death of CWC leader and Livestock Development minister S Thondaman, 87, on 30 October has pushed the government further into crisis. The Tamil parties say that during the five-year Chandrika rule, Tamil civilians have suffered extreme restriction on freedom of movement and violations of human rights by security forces. They argue that under such conditions, election campaign in the Army-controlled north-east is futile and elections in LTTE areas is impossible.
The parties have severely criticized the government for the 12% increase in the defence expenditure for the year 2000, which will be a staggering Rs 52.4 billion ($728 million). The launch of Operation Watershed in the Vanni, in an attempt to turn the military campaign to political advantage has backfired. Despite all these problems, analysts say, UNP candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe will not be able to match her public appeal.