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| Saturday, 17 April 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| Tyronne Fernando blasts UNP leadership by Asanga Warnakulasuriya UNP stalwart and former Foreign Affairs Minister Tyronne Fernando yesterday described himself as a "free bird" being omitted from the UNP National List to Parliament. "I have received an invitation from the Minister of Tourism, Anura Bandaranaike to join the party. If matters turn worse, then I will be compelled to take a decision to join the UPFA", the former Minister told a media briefing at his private residence in Colombo yesterday. "But at the moment I am in the process of reassessing the party leadership, policies and my affiliation to the party since I feel that there is something radically and tragically wrong in the UNP which is now losing its sense of direction and priorities", he said, adding he will not retire from politics. The former minister disclosed that he had sent a three page letter to party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe expressing his dissatisfaction over the decision not to nominate him on the National List. He mentioned that he was omitted from the list to accommodate K. N. Choksy despite the fact he too had a wide knowledge of constitutional law. "Prof. G. L. Peiris had been brought in for the role he played in the peace process though he (Peiris) had no vote base in Moratuwa", Fernando claimed. Condemning the party leadership, the former minister said he believed in collective leadership which listened to others rather than dictatorship. He also alleged that the party was now in a process of putting honest and decent politicians onto the streets and letting all sorts of others, including thugs remain in the party. The former MP said he was stunned when he heard S. B. Dissanayake had been appointed as the National Organiser, who had earlier claimed that the UNP will win 16 out of 17 districts. He also criticised the party's shortsighted decisions saying the agreement signed between the UNP and SLMC which he described as a folly, the party had agreed to allocate four seats in the UNP National list to the SLMC. This has resulted in half a million voters from Colombo West to Moratuwa having nobody from the UNP to represent them in Parliament. On the other hand, having secured only 186,876 votes, the SLMC ends up with a total of nine seats. "I have known President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga from her childhood and I know that she is a moderate leader and we all know that she was twice elected President of Sri Lanka. "Willingly or not, we have to accept the fact that she is the President and on several occasions I negotiated with two major parties to come to a working arrangement, until when all such efforts went down the drain with some actions taken by several so called "mighty UNPers" who even tried to inspect what was inside her handbag," he added. As a senior MP who represented the UNP for 27 years, Fernando revealed several facts that led to the humiliating defeat in General Elections 2004. One of those were that the UNP in its past had only managed to create a chewing gum and "pony tail" youth culture. They failed to nurture religious values which ultimately resulted in larger chunks of UNP votes being eaten up by the Jathika Hela Urumaya. The other fact is that the UNP mainly promoted the betterment of a handful of business and mafia communities rather than the public and farmers, Fernando charged. The UNP Provincial Councillor, Senaka Damayantha along with 42 UNP organisers have decided to step down from the party membership in protest over the decision to drop Fernando on the National List. The former Minister denied certain media reports which claimed that the reason behind the omission was that he had been appointed by the President to be the Permanent Representative at the UN. |
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