Sri lanka’s main Opposition United National Party (UNP) on Thursday decided to stay away from CHOGM that begins on Friday, alleging the Government was using devious methods of “harassing” the party.
“We want to protest the treatment meted out to us by the Government in the recent days”, Tissa Attanayake, the UNP general secretary said.
“We have decided to boycott the CHOGM entirely because the Government is using devious methods of harassing the UNP,” he alleged.
Attanayake said the underworld was deployed to storm and attack his party headquarters both yesterday and today.
UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Monday that he would attend the opening ceremony to be held on Friday.
The UNP would compel the Government to uphold Commonwealth values such as good governance, independence of judiciary, freedom of media during the next two years when Sri lanka performs chair role for the Commo-nwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), Wickremesinghe said.