Political observers said that Wickremesinghe launching his virtual manifesto this week titled “Future Challenges,” wherein he is clearly appealing to woo back the estranged Sinhala Buddhist voters is a prelude to declaring his intention to contest the Presidency.

It was only two weeks ago that the newly formed United National Front virtually announced that Gen. Fonseka would be their candidate. However, at this week’s UNP Working Committee meeting, which was one of the shortest in duration, when leading rebel Johnston Fernando queried whether Fonseka would be the common Presidential candidate, Wickremesinghe had replied that they had not yet decided.

Another hint which throws some light on this development is the fact that Mangala Samaraweera has gone on record this week by stating that there are now nine possible common candidates.
Meanwhile, a member of the UNP dissident group said that they see Gen. Fonseka bogey as a skilful way of staving off the mounting rebellion within the UNP against Wickremesinghe. Earlier, Wickremesinghe had been in two minds about coming forward as the party candidate because of the growing criticism from rebel ranks within, even about his leadership of the party, the sources said.

With Sarath Fonseka deliberately changing certain clauses of his resignation letter jointly drafted by the UNF alliance, especially pertaining to things such as media freedom, it all now points to the UNP Leader being the common candidate of the alliance, they said.

According to insiders, JVP too appears to be split over making Sarath Fonseka their candidate with one group led by Anura Kumara Dissanayaka wanting to teach President Rajapaksa a lesson by backing Fonseka, while party General Secretary Tilvin Silva is leading another group opposing such a decision.