New President should eliminate poverty: presidential candidate Liyanage

Whoever emerges as the new president, his priority should be to eliminate poverty and hunger, Sri Lanka Labour Party presidential candidate A.S.P. Liyanage said.

He said that Sri Lanka had never suffered from malnutrition in the past but at present, the malnutrition rate in the country was on the rise.

He said people were resorting to crimes such as drug smuggling due to the increase of poverty in the country.

Mr. Liyanage said his election manifesto would especially focus on livelihood of the people and law and order in the country including education.

He said university students should be given military training to establish discipline in the universities. “All students above grade five should be given facilities to learn Sinhala, English and Tamil languages,” he said.

He said that most presidential candidates had already put forward their election manifesto and what was spelt out in those manifestos were not practical. “People should demand from those candidates as to how they were going to implement them,” he said.