Fake letter falsely claiming Sri Lanka candidate withdrew from presidential race circulates online

Published on August 21, 2024 at 08:40
2 min read
By Harshana SILVA, AFP Sri Lanka

A spokesperson for Dilith Jayaweera -- a Sri Lankan businessman running in the country's presidential election -- told AFP a letter that suggested he had dropped out of the race was a "fake". The 56-year-old's name remains in a list of presidential candidates released by the South Asian country's electoral commission after the falsified letter surfaced on social media.

"Mr. Dilith Jayaweera withdraws his presidential candidacy," read a Sinhala-language Facebook post published on August 9, 2024.

The post included an image of a letter addressed to the executive members of the Sarvajana Balaya coalition and appeared to be signed by Jayaweera on the same day that it surfaced on social media. It also contained the name of Jayaweera's party -- Mawbima Janatha Party (MJP) -- in the top left corner.

"I would like to thank all party leaders and other political representatives for nominating me as the presidential candidate from the Sarvajana Balaya coalition. However, I will not run as a candidate for the 2024 presidential election due to personal reasons," the letter read.

Screenshot of the post shared on Facebook alongside the image of the letter captured on August 16

The false claim surfaced ahead of Sri Lanka's presidential election on September 21, 2024 -- the first such vote since former leader Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced out of office in 2022 after months of protests over his mishandling of the economy.

According to Sri Lankan media, Rajapaksa sees Jayaweera as his "close aide", and has given his blessing for the MJP leader to campaign for the top job as part of the Sarvajana Balaya coalition (archived link).

The falsified letter has circulated elsewhere on Facebook here and here, and also spread on the instant messaging platform WhatsApp as shown in the screenshot below:

Screenshot of the false claim on WhatsApp

Fake letter

Gamini Waleboda, a member of parliament heading Jayaweera's media campaign for the presidential race, told AFP the letter circulating online was a "fake document".

"Our letterheads were shared online. Someone has taken one of them to create this. This is a fake letter. We can identify our own letters," he said.

AFP also identified inconsistencies in the letter, such as multiple spelling mistakes and different font sizes used for the Sarvajana Balaya coalition's name and the rest of the text, as highlighted in the screenshot below:

Inconsistencies in the falsified letter highlighted by AFP

Sri Lanka's Election Commission also released a list of candidates in the presidential election on August 18 -- days after the falsified letter began circulating online -- which showed Jayaweera remained in the race (archived here).

AFP has debunked other claims made online about the Sri Lanka election here and here.

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