Palitha Fernando confident of winning NOCSL elections

By Susil Premalal

 Presidential candidate for the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka (NOCSL), Major General (Ret) Palitha Fernando expressed his confidence in winning tomorrow’s elections quite convincingly.

The current President of Sri Lanka Athletics (SLA) said he had the backing of 20 sports associations at the time when he submitted his nominations and believes his popularity has now further increased.

The NOCSL elections to select the new set of office-bearers for the period of 2021 to 2024 will be held tomorrow (December 28) at the Olympic House in Colombo, commencing at 5 p.m. 

A total of 35 national sports associations affiliated with the NOCSL are eligible to cast their secret votes at the elections.

Fernando obtained 18 votes at the 2018 NOCSL elections and secured the Vice-President post.
Fernando said that his main goal is to establish a solid platform to develop the sport in the country and to eliminate some of the irregularities in the current administrative system.

He also said that some of the nominations from his camp were rejected for technical reasons, but that would not prevent him from winning the elections by a clear majority. 

Meanwhile, the incumbent President of the NOCSL, Suresh Subramaniam, has also submitted his credentials to contest for the top post.

Subramaniam also believes that he has the chance of winning the elections this time, even by a bigger margin, as he had a clean record during this period by conducting matters in a transparent manner.

He said during his tenure, the NOCSL was able to maintain the highest amount of Rs 200 million in fixed deposits through sponsorships and saved a sum of Rs 19 million from the Tokyo Olympic Games sponsorships.
Subramaniam’s only regret is that Sri Lanka was not able to win an Olympic medal during his period, but said he has already laid the administrative groundwork to achieve that goal in the next edition.

Meanwhile, out of the 12 top candidates, who had submitted nominations, Chandana Liyanage (basketball) and Shirantha Peiris (shooting) have already won the posts of Assistant Secretary and Assistant Treasurer uncontested.

The significance is that both candidates are from Subramaniam’s camp.

In addition, the nominations of Dian Gomes (boxing) and Kamal Pushpakumara (hockey) for the post of vice-president have been rejected, while another vice-president candidate, Asanga Seneviratne (baseball), has withdrawn.