Sri Lanka's main Tamil party TNA today picked a retired Supreme Court judge critical of the government as its chief ministerial candidate for the Northern provincial elections to be held for the first time in 25 years after the end of the decades-long ethnic conflict.
The five constituent parties of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) had met today decided to pick C V Wigneswaran as its candidate.
The retired judge of the Supreme Court was a known critic of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government over its alleged human rights violations during the end of country's fierce separatist war.
"It was unanimously resolved that the candidate for the position of Chief Minister at the forthcoming Provincial Council elections for the Northern Province would be Mr C V Wigneswaran, a retired judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. Other nominations will be finalised in due course by the TNA," the TNA said in a statement.
A date for the vote in the Tamil-majority province has not been finalised, but it is likely to be held in September.
Wigneswaran was a much respected public personality and the party would appeal to the voters in the Northern Province to wholeheartedly support him, TNA said.
The decision on Wigneswaran came after weeks of speculation that Mavai Senathirajah, a veteran TNA legislator from Jaffna would be picked.
There were expended deliberations on the merits of the two candidates, the TNA sources said.
Wigneswaran is a political fresher and the Tamil party had opted for someone without any past connections with the LTTE as its candidate, political observers here noted.
The TNA was branded the proxy of the LTTE and accused by the Sinhala majority nationalists of pursuing the same separatist intents of the vanquished rebel outfit.
Sri Lankan army had defeated separatist Tamil Tiger rebels after a brutal 26-year war in 2009.
