The UNP is to launch a countrywide poster campaign on February 14,to highlight the unbearable cost of living,corruption,killings and government backed attacks on media personnel.

The campaign in Colombo,will be led by Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, while party branches have been entrusted with the task, in the rest of the country.

General Secretary of the UNP,Tissa Attanayake told a news conference in Colombo yesterday,that they can no longer remain silent as the masses are undergoing immense suffering and hardships.

"The people are urging us,as the single largest political party in the country to take the lead in ending the tyrannical and miserable rule of President Mahinda Rajapakse.There is no way that we can ignore their wishes."

With inflation at a staggering 26 per cent, Sri Lanka is now even worse off than Bangladesh,the poorest country in the region,he said.

"The calamity that has befallen Sri Lanka has nothing to do with world market prices but sheer incompetence of the Mahinda Rajapakse regime.It has the dubious honour of being the most corrupt and violent regime in our history.Wastage and ego boosting exercises have reached gigantic proportions and the entire government is having a party,at the expense of tax payers and the poor who are struggling to survive amidst skyrocketting prices of essential goods."

Attanayake,said that while the majority of people are finding it difficult to obtain a square meal,the "Polonnaruwa Rice Cartel",led by a Minister is manipulating the price of rice and getting fatter and richer by the day.

Paying a tribute to SLFP(M) Coordinator Sripathy Sooriyarachchi who died in a tragic accident on Saturday,Attanayake said that Sooriyarachchi had the courage of conviction to expose the Rajapakse Brothers and Company’s election deal with the LTTE and also their corrupt activities.