UNP youth leaders will form a separate political movement if the party leadership continues to treat the party as a private fiefdom, former minister Harin Fernando said yesterday.
“If the UNP is used as a fiefdom like some other leaders did, we will have no second thoughts on forming a new movement. We have no hope of staying within the party with those who drag their feet within the party,” he added.
Fernando told a press briefing held in Colombo that he does not endorse moves by UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to seek the Opposition Leader’s post.
He also expressed satisfaction over the new political culture President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has espoused. “We do not wish to obstruct the new President's programmes as youth. I appreciate the endeavours taken by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa such as displaying only the State emblem instead of the customary President’s image and reducing vehicle backups,” he added.
“We bow down to the mandate of the people.We stepped down giving room to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his camp to engage in governance.We hear within the party that we dragged Sajith Premadasa into difficulty by selecting him to contest the presidential election; we are disappointed because the party took so long to announce his name. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa as well as Sajith Premadasa, both focused on national security. But Citizens lost confidence in the government after the Easter Attack.
It is not a personal dispute between the voters and Sajith Premadasa. He had to pay on behalf of the whole Government. While we were solving family issues,our opponents had already travelled halfway in the election campaign,” he said.
He also added that Premier Ranil Wickremesinghe stepped down from his position and they wish to handover the Government to the new president’s camp. “But we do not endorse Premier having other plans to stand as Opposition Leader. According to the mandate we will step down but there is no need to dissolve Parliament. We will face the General Election end of February under a new leadership,” he added.
Fernando also added that extremism should not be fuelled for political gains. “All countries in the world are going in a circle of fueling extremism.We also travelled in the same wave but this is a cycle, there will be a time where this turns upside down. Anyhow we accept the people’s mandate.The drawbacks within the past led to the great loss, in fact there were areas where even leaflets were not distributed.”
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