Presidential polls: Lanka's ruling party criticizes UN chief for 'wrongful inferences'

Sri Lanka's ruling "United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) today harshly criticized the United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki-moon for his call to the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led government to ensure "peaceful and credible conduct" of the January 8 presidential election.

"United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) expresses strong resentment over the recent statement made by United Nations Secretary-General Ban-Ki-moon conveying his "strong expectation" that the Government of Sri Lanka will ensure "the peaceful and credible conduct" of the upcoming Presidential election, scheduled for early next year," a statement issued by the Government Information Department said.

The statement, according to the Lanka Page web site, further stated that Sri Lanka is a country with over 80 years of universal adult franchise and a healthy democratic electoral tradition.

"In fact this country has been enjoying democratic voting rights many decades before Mr Ban-Ki-moon's country," it said.

"The UN Secretary General, who has not asked governments or leaders of many countries with questionable claim to democracy to conduct credible elections, is preaching to Sri Lanka, a vibrant democracy on how to conduct elections," the government said.

Charging that the UN Chief has given unsubstantiated figures of alleged '350 violent attacks against Muslims and over 150 attacks against Christians in the last two years', the ruling party challenged the UNSG to show if there had been even a single attack on Muslims or Christians in this period of campaigning which commenced six weeks ago.