TISSA ATTANAYAKA, PROTÉGÉ OF UNP LEADER THREATENS SEVERE DICIPLINARY ACTION FOR THOSE WHO LEFT THE PARTY

By Walter Jayawardhana

Apparently upset over losing forty parliamentarians to the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa over the years the protégé of party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and General Secretary of the United National Party (UNP) Tissa Attanayaka threatened to take disciplinary action against the party’s latest team who joined the government and accepted the ministerial positions.

Attanayaka who has been making desperate political moves to avoid his leader being removed from party leadership despite his fourteen glaring electoral defeats said the team led by party’s deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya who joined the government with a team of party veterans, in the history’s biggest exodus will be dealt with severely using party discipline. He said it was clearly stated in the party constitution that they could not join any outside party or coalition without the approval of the working committee.

He said details of the disciplinary action would be worked out immediately at the next working committee meeting.

But the party reformists maintain that they never left the party and they have joined the government as members of the United National Party and even help implement the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party and their United National Party.

The UNP has failed to remove other parliamentarians like Keheliya Rambukwella before from parliament as they had successfully argued before the Supreme Court against such a move. About half of the UNP dissidents serving in the government joined Mahinda Rajapaksa before this exodus .
Tissa Attanayaka also said that the MOU signed between the two parties will be trashed since accepting UNP dissidents into the government was an abrogation of the 8th condition of the agreement.He was speaking over the Sinhala language program of the BBC , the Sandeshaya.
Attanayka also attacked Mahinda Rajapaksa for accepting UNP dissidents into the government and said it was ridiculous to think to establish peace by accepting 18 members of Parliament from a party that has promised such support with the help of 60 parliamentarians.

He said it was finally a good sign that these dissidents left the party since no party could go forward with such disloyal people since by accepting ministerial perks they have exhibited what kind of reforms they wanted to have in the party. They were clamoring purportedly for reforms and what they were interested were ministerial perks, Attanayaka charged.

The General Secretary said because of them the normal activities of the party were very much harmed. He said the rebels who left the party very much obstructed the party organizational activities since they made the party preoccupied with reformist proposals that prevented the normal activities.
The dissidents wanted arbitrary powers in the hands of the party leader removed and install internal party democracy that allowed the power of electing the party leader. But the party leader wanted to keep those powers that kept ultimate powers in his hands.

Meanwhile M. K. Shivajilingam of the LTTE proxy party the Tamil National Alliance speaking over the same radio program asked how could only part of the UNP MP’s fulfill the aims of the MOU when the full body of MP’s could not help it. He said the UNP MP’s have crossed over due to the party internal clashes.