{"id":96448,"date":"2019-12-16T00:51:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T06:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96448"},"modified":"2019-12-15T17:46:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T00:46:01","slug":"the-unp-can-never-come-to-power-unless-they-change-the-whole-structure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/16\/the-unp-can-never-come-to-power-unless-they-change-the-whole-structure\/","title":{"rendered":"The UNP can never come to power unless they change the whole structure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Sudath Gunasekara 14,12.2019.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

The UNP can never come\nto power unless they change their name UNP, present leadership, policies and\ntheir dependence on the west and the Tamil and Muslim minorities and get armed\nwith a new policy that is more patriotic and inward looking and more appealing\nto the masses than what the Pohottuwa stands for.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Continued from December 6th, 2019 Lankaweb The Birth and\nthe Demise of the UNP (Un-patriotic non-National Party).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UNP can never come to power\nunless they change their name UNP, present leadership, policies and their\ndependence on the west and the minorities and get armed with a new policy that\nis more patriotic and inward looking and more appealing to the masses than what\nthe Pohottuwa stands for<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further to my previous essay on\nthe above subject published on 6th Dec, I would like to add few more comments\non the UNP that would be interesting to my readers.  JR had carefully selected two young brilliant\npoliticians Gamini Disanayaka and Lalith Atulathmudali as potential future\nleaders to fill the vacuum of the party after him. In fact JR was grooming\nGamini as his successor Gamini to be the next President. But Premadasa, (Just\nlike what Sajit did in 2019 against Ranil) deployed an Island wide campaign\nagainst JR against his move to nominate Gamini and he wanted the nominations\nfor the Presidency. I remember the words JR MARAMU appeared overnight on the\nroads and instances where even school children wrote these words on their\nslates were reported.  Finally JR gave in\nand Premadasa (Father of Sajit) who took over the leadership by force and\nintimidation from JR towards the end of 1988 \nbecame the President on 2nd Jan in 1989. From the day he became\nPresident he did not like Gamini and Lalith as he considered them to be a\npotential threat to him. So he sidelined them and demoted in their Ministerial\npositions. Gamini decided to leave politics under Premadasa and left the country\nto Cambridge for studies. Lalith remained behind as destiny wanted him to and\nhe was finally assassinated on April 23, 1993 at an election meeting at\nKirulapana by Premadasa\u2019s goons. \nPremadasa himself was assassinated by the LTTE on 1 May 1993, perhaps in\nretribution for what he had done. He was succeeded by D.B. Wijetunga and got\ndown Gamini to lead the Party. He was also assassinated the LTTE at an election\nmeeting in Totalanga. while he was addressing Presidential meeting to\nChandrikas luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following two mews items that\nappeared in media narrate the conspiracy behind Lalith\u201ds political\nassassination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athulathmudali was assassinated\nwhen he was shot by a gunman on 23 April 1993 after an election rally at\nKirulapana. Initially, the government blamed the LTTE and produced the body of\na Tamil youth named Ragunathan which was found near the scene of the shooting\nthe following day. He had apparently died from taking a cyanide capsule.\nHowever, these claims were later proved to be false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Presidential Commission carried\nout by the Sri Lankan Government concluded that Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe\nPremadasa was directly responsible for the assassination. It also concluded\nthat the Tamil youth Ragunathan, was murdered by the same people who killed\nAthulathmudali, by forcibly administering him with cyanide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does this not  speaks volumes of Ranasinha Premadasa\u2019s\nvicious  plans to remove the most\nbrilliant political leader JR had picked up to take the UNP forward and the\nirreparable damage he had done to the UNP in particular and the country at\nlarge<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In this back drop what credentials Sajih can\nclaim to lead the UNP at a crucial time of the Party like the present when it\nhad fallen to the lowest level in its history with both in its anti-Sinhala\nAnti-Buddhist policies and the quality politicians it has brought to Parliament\nwhere there isn\u2019t a single promising Potential leader of quality statesmanship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I consider the assassination of\nLalith in 1993 and the death of Gamini in 1994 as the beginning of the journey\nof UNP to its demise for which R Premadasa was solely accountable. He was\ndirectly responsible for Lalith\u2019s murder, as it was later reported in the\npress, and of cause for Gamini\u2019s, leaving the Party. These two young shining\nstars of the UNP would have definitely lifted the UNP to unbelievable levels\nhad they lived. Of the two, having worked with him for one year and known very\nclosely Lalith would have made this country a miracle in Asia if lived to lead\nthe UNP. As a person who has worked closely with both, I can tell you with\nauthority the story of UNP as a political party would have been completely\ndifferent today if they lived to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gamini being senior to Lalith in\npolitics and more charismatic was certainly a popular politician who could\nattract crowds with his pleasant personality. But Lalith was a world class\nleader with his academic credentials from Oxford and Harvard with no peer\neither here or even in India. I worked with him very closely for one year under\nthe Ministry of Agriculture and I rate him as the best politician and statesman\nI have ever met. I have devoted one chapter for him in my book \u2018Deyata\nAhimivana Ran Akara\u201d a critique of public Administration of our time. Both of\nthem revolted against Premadasa for which they had to pay dearly. Premadasa did\nnot like both of them and finally got them removed from the party. That was the\nbiggest damage Premadasa did to the UNP and the treachery to the country.  In this backdrop those crazy young UNP MPP\nwho expect Ranasinha Premadasa\u2019s son (who does not inherit an iota of R\nPremadasa\u2019s talents) to lift up the UNP that has already been dumped in to the\ndustbin of history by Ranil, in my opinion is only day dreaming on their part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the political forces those who\nare dying for the UNP, wants to rekindle it again the first thing they should\ndo is to drop this illegitimate name UNP, baptized by Mason Moor, the colonial\nBritish to ruin this country and the Sinhala Nation, as I have discussed in\ndetail in my previous article, and start with a new name, that goes with the\nspirit of the nation and that can attract and mobilize the Sinhala Buddhists\npopulous and whole Sinhala nation including the s\/Catholics and S\/Christians.\nSecond they have to reorganize the new Party under a new leadership, other than\nboth Ranil Wickramasinha and Sajit Premadasa, both of whom have been rejected\nby the Sinhala Buddhists. As for me I don\u2019t see anyone among all those who are already\nin Parliament, either among the so-called seniors or juniors who can command\nthe respect and regard of the majority Sinhala Buddhist voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway they have enough time till\nat least 2030 to begin a new political journey as the present Government will\ndefinitely be in power at least till then. Whoever is going to be the new\nleader, they as a party can never come back to power even after 2030 unless\nthey change their policies on their dependence on the west and the minorities\nand get armed with a new policy that is more patriotic and inward looking and\nmore appealing to the masses than what the Pohottuwa stands for as I have\nstated at the beginning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Sudath Gunasekara 14,12.2019. The UNP can never come to power unless they change their name UNP, present leadership, policies and their dependence on the west and the Tamil and Muslim minorities and get armed with a new policy that is more patriotic and inward looking and more appealing to the masses than what the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sudath-gunasekara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}