This claim has been fiercely contested by United National Party (UNP), the main opposition party, and several other political groups, mainly in the form of massive public demonstrations against thegovernment. The weight of legal opinion also appears to favour the stance of the Opposition; and, according to media disclosures, those empowered to arbitrate over this dispute - the Commissioner of Elections and the Supreme Court - are likely to call for the next presidential poll to be held in December 2005.
Within this milieu of bickering and uncertainty there are other ingredients of escalating unrest. The routine affairs of administration are being frequently crippled by strikes and other forms of protest, which invariably succeed in mobilising a high level of not entirely peaceful popular support (and, often, retaliatory repression by the security forces). These reflect, in part, the eroding credibility of thegovernment, and partly the worsening of economic conditions in the form of soaring inflation and unemployment.
Far more significant in disruptive impact is, of course, the increasing recourse to violence by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam ( LTTE ) in the form of both innumerable violations of the terms and conditions of thegovernment-LTTE ceasefire agreement of February 2002 as well as the increasing belligerence that accompanies its demands. As a mass of evidence hitherto unearthed indicates, the assassination of Lakshman Kadirgamar, the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka, is the latest and the most destabilising episode of this latter process. Late in the evening of August 12, 2005, Kadirgamar sustained serious injury within the precincts of his own home, targeted by gunmen operating from the upper floor of an adjacent house. He succumbed to his injuries at Colombo's main hospital a few hours later.
Lakshman Kadirgamar is the latest in the long list of leaders of the Tamil community here murdered by the LTTE in the course of its campaign aimed ostensibly at liberating the Tamils of Sri Lanka. In fact, earlier in the same day, in another part of Colombo, Senathurai Sellakumar, the owner of a communication centre and a former member of People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), and his wife, a Thamil announcer of the state-owned TV network, were killed, allegedly by LTTE gunmen.