UNP efforts to form a broad coalition against President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government appears to have run into a storm with an influential section of the main Opposition party openly undermining Mangala Samaraweera, MP, a key player in the opposition grouping.

Political sources said that disruption of a meeting called by the group at the auditorium of the Kurunegala Young Men Buddhist Association last week highlighted trouble brewing.

They said that a group of UNPers, including local government politicians at the behest of a UNP MP representing the Kurunegala District had booed dissident SLFP MP Samaraweera, leader of SLFP (Mahajana Wing).

The presence of UNP Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya, General Secretary Tissa Attanayake and Kurunegala strong man Gamini Jayawickrema Perera had not discouraged the group. UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is away in Australia.

Although the party had warned that punitive action would be taken against trouble makers, the leadership feared another split ahead of elections for the Southern Provincial Council now expected to take place in October.

Opposition sources alleged that supporters of a UNP MP, who may switch his allegiance to the government before the next big election, had targeted Samaraweera. They added that though Samaraweera had vowed to face any threat from the government, he seemed to be helpless against opposition within.

UNP sources said that a poor show at the Southern Provincial Council elections would cause further problems speculating that Samaraweera’s own position at Matara could drastically decline in the event of an overwhelming victory for the ruling coalition.

Some sources acknowledged that their criticism of handling of the IDP issue and repeated calls to release them regardless of the threat posed by LTTE terrorists masquerading as civilians could be advantageous to the government. Unfortunately opposition spokesmen seemed to be blind to the reality, they said.

Many media personalities who had batted for the UNP at the last UNP parliamentary and presidential election campaigns had ended up on the UPFA’s payroll, with some of spearheading the government campaign, some UNPers allege.

Internal squabbling coupled with government’s propaganda blitz and the opposition own shortcomings had thwarted their efforts to form a united front against the government, they admitted.

While some believed the Marxist JVP too could be brought into the front others regarded this as unrealistic in the backdrop of the armed forces’ triumph over the LTTE.

An MP speaking on the condition of anonymity said that both the UNP and JVP had failed to grasp the ground situation after the government permanently removed the LTTE factor. A section of the international community, too, was turning a blind eye to the drastic change in the situation, he said.

If the government calls a presidential elections ahead of the parliamentary polls scheduled before April next year, the joint opposition would find it in an extremely difficult situation, informed sources said.