Old wine in new bottles

Chamikara Weerasinghe

Jathika Hela Urumaya, Propaganda Secretary Nishantha Warnasinghe said on Friday, the UNP’s recent announcement that they have formed a new alliance called the United National Front, with 12 political parties, leaders of civil organizations and groups of media sympathizers joining them is true only so far as MP Mangala Samaraweera from the SLFP “M-group” is concerned for his is the only face to be discerned as “new” among them.

“If not for the presence of Mangala Samaraweera in their new Front, the UNP’s statement that they have formed “a new alliance” would have astonished,” Warnasinghe said.

He said, the United National Front comprises groups such as Rauf Hakeem’s Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and Mano Ganeshan’s Western Province People’s Front and 12 other political parties.

“The SLMC and Ganeshan’s Peramuna have been with the UNP from the time of the 2004 General election . They were members of the UNF when they worked together for UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe at the Presidential Election of 2005,” he said.

“The 12 political parties that have joined the UNF, are as good as dead because they were parties that have been confined to mere hoardings and banners,” Warnasinghe said.

This Front is an old Front which have been on a losing spree at all recently held Provincial elections. They have lost eight provincial elections in succession despite all the support they have got from their media sympathizers without a sign of success, he said.

This is an alliance that has always worked against the country’s territorial integrity and unitary State. They have always been bankrolled by foreign powers to work in accordance with their agendas, he said.

“This Front has always belittled the sacrifices made by our soldiers in their battle against terrorism.

They have a common policy of putting the Motherland in a constant flux of conflict to earn their buck by servicing external powers,” he said.

“This is definitely not a Front that would want to move the country forward,” he said and added that MP Samaraweera has joined among them to give it a fashionable look, “but you cannot put old wine in new bottles.”