Last Updated : 2024-04-20 00:00:00

Apps Advertising Home Delivery WNL Home Feedback Login Subscribe

MENU

Sat, 20 Apr 2024 Today's Paper

Candidates we field are of good character

By

29 July 2013 07:31 pm - 1     - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

A A A



One of the se­nior-most Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in the coun­try and Chief Op­po­si­tion whip, UNP front lin­er John Amar­a­tun­ga in a can­did in­ter­view with Dai­ly Mir­ror, spoke about his par­ty’s pol­i­cies on the up­com­ing pro­vin­cial polls and ex­plained why they did not be­lieve for­mer UNP MP Day­a­siri Jaya­se­kara’s de­fec­tion last week would make any im­pact on the par­ty or its cam­paigns.

Fol­low­ing are some ex­cerpts:

Q:Isn’t for­mer MP Jaya­se­kara’s de­fec­tion a ma­jor set­back for the UNP at the up­com­ing Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil polls?
Ab­so­lute­ly not and we say that with out­right cer­tain­ty be­cause we have oth­er mem­bers in the par­ty, who are even more ca­pa­ble and am­bi­tious in run­ning the cam­paign for the UNP.

Q: Pres­ent­ly, some 67 UNP MPs have crossed over and are now part of the co­a­li­tion gov­ern­ment.  Ma­jor­i­ty of them cite dis­a­gree­ments and clash­es with the lead­er, as the rea­son that led to their de­fec­tion. Why are par­ty of­fi­cials in­ac­tive be­fore this rap­id drain in the UNP?
Well, there were some is­sues but they have now been re­solved ami­ca­bly. Even with con­cern to Day­a­siri, he was par­doned. Even the in­ves­ti­ga­tions and in­qui­ries against him were quash­ed pri­or to his de­fec­tion.
Dis­a­gree­ments with the lead­er are just ex­cu­ses that they look for, to jus­ti­fy their de­fec­tion and they try to take cov­er un­der it. I don’t see any ne­ces­si­ty for a change in the cur­rent lead­er­ship, as he is the most in­tel­li­gent and knowl­edge­a­ble man in Sri Lan­ka in com­par­i­son to the rest of those en­gag­ed in pol­i­tics, in the coun­try.

"The rea­son for tak­ing Day­a­siri, from the point of view of the UP­FA, was due to their in­se­cur­i­ty of los­ing the North West­ern Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil polls. They were seek­ing a can­di­date who could get suf­fi­cient votes for them to be able to form a coun­cil"

Q: But the quash­ing of for­mer MP Jaya­se­kara’s in­qui­ries has been in­ter­pre­ted by some as a move to cov­er-up the ac­tual rea­son for his de­fec­tion - dis­a­gree­ments with the lead­er­ship?
Day­a­siri’s ne­go­tia­tions with the UP­FA have been go­ing on for sev­er­al years. Know­ing the Pres­i­dent, he wai­ted un­til the op­por­tune mo­ment ar­rived to get Day­a­siri on­to his side.
The rea­son for tak­ing Day­a­siri, from the point of view of the UP­FA, was due to their in­se­cur­i­ty of los­ing the North West­ern Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil polls. They were seek­ing a can­di­date who could get suf­fi­cient votes for them to be able to form a coun­cil. These ac­tions - hunt­ing for per­son­nel from the op­po­si­tion par­ties to ach­ieve their goals, mere­ly re­flects on the po­lit­i­cal bank­rupt­cy of the UP­FA.

Q: So you are ac­knowl­edg­ing that for­mer MP Jaya­se­kara is a fig­ure who could have ral­lied suf­fi­cient votes for the UNP to have won the elec­tion?
That is what the gov­ern­ment thinks. But in my opin­ion, his con­duct dur­ing the past cou­ple of days has dis­credi­ted him; the con­fi­dence that was placed in him by the peo­ple has now waned. He is no lon­ger a re­li­a­ble fig­ure.

'Our vot­er base has not de­creased but the vot­ers have felt dis­cour­aged to cast their votes due to the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tions com­mit­ted dur­ing the elec­tion pro­cess­es. They have lost their con­fi­dence in the dem­o­crat­ic proc­ess'

Q: Al­le­ga­tions have been lev­el­led against the sev­er­al dis­ci­pli­na­ry com­mit­tees ap­poin­ted re­cent­ly – that they are the lead­er’s hench­men who car­ry out his bid­ding. As a se­nior mem­ber of the par­ty, what are your com­ments on such ac­cu­sa­tions?
We are a par­ty with a fully-fledg­ed con­sti­tu­tion and we work ac­cord­ing to the rules and reg­u­la­tions em­bed­ded in it. Those ap­poin­ted to the dis­ci­pli­na­ry com­mit­tees are se­lec­ted ow­ing to their com­pe­tence in the le­gal profession. Hence, I do not see why those mem­bers should be ac­cused of be­ing hench­men of the UNP Lead­er or any­one else’s – their ap­point­ments en­ti­tled them to in­ves­ti­gate in­to a mat­ter, in­quire and re­port.  
The dis­ci­pli­na­ry com­mit­tees had to be ap­poin­ted due to un­ru­ly ac­tions of Day­a­siri and sev­er­al oth­ers. How­ev­er, once the com­mit­tees were ap­poin­ted, the MPs in ques­tion at­ten­ded the in­qui­ries, con­fessed to their ac­tions and pledged to re­frain from re­peat­ing them. They even sign­ed docu­ments be­fore the dis­ci­pli­na­ry com­mit­tees; even Day­a­siri asked for par­don for his ac­tions and vow­ed to stand by the par­ty and work to­geth­er.  Even on the day be­fore the morn­ing he crossed-over, he was par­tic­i­pat­ing in the proc­ess of se­lect­ing can­di­dates for the up­com­ing pro­vin­cial polls – this is why I called him an un­re­li­a­ble fig­ure.  

Q: Why have MPs Karu Jaya­sur­iya and Sa­jith Pre­ma­da­sa been side-lined from the nom­i­na­tions board for the up­com­ing PC polls?
There have been so many mem­bers of the UNP who have not been in­clu­ded in the nom­i­na­tions board. There is no hard and fast rule that states they should be nom­i­na­ted. Maybe there are rea­sons as to why they were not in­clu­ded but I am not aware of them.
 
Q: Is it true that the UNP is plan­ning to gear their pro­vin­cial poll cam­paigns to­wards draw­ing in se­nior votes and waive off at­tempts to win those of the youth? Do you be­lieve a strat­egy that ex­cludes the youth would help win the polls?
Of course not! We have to and will be can­vass­ing for ev­ery vote in the vot­ers’ list at the up­com­ing PC poll cam­paigns. There is a youth group among our Par­lia­men­ta­ry mem­bers as well as a se­nior group and they will be dis­trib­uted even­ly to car­ry out the cam­paign­ing.

"We are anx­ious­ly wait­ing to see the out­come of the Par­lia­men­ta­ry Se­lect Com­mit­tee re­port on the changes to 13A and the fact that it is be­ing held with­out the par­tic­i­pa­tion of a sin­gle op­po­si­tion mem­ber"

Q: Do you think there is scope for the up­com­ing PC elec­tions to be free and fair, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the North where op­po­si­tion po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties have not been al­lowed much of a voice through­out the past four years?
If the past is any in­di­ca­tion, I don’t be­lieve the up­com­ing elec­tions would be any­thing close to free and fair. In fact, I made a claim that the vot­ing proc­ess with con­cern to gov­ern­ment serv­ants is not au­ton­o­mous due to personnel be­ing com­pel­led to cast their votes be­fore the head of the de­part­ment. That is on­ly a sin­gle ex­am­ple of the hun­dreds of elec­tion reg­u­la­tion vi­o­la­tions that have been oc­cur­ring un­der the bless­ing of this gov­ern­ment through­out the past few years.
It is due to our con­cerns re­gard­ing the pos­si­ble vi­o­la­tions of a free and fair elec­tion proc­ess, that we strong­ly ad­vo­cate for­eign mon­i­tors. But they have al­ready re­jec­ted the fea­si­bil­i­ty of bring­ing in for­eign mon­i­tors and it is a forecast of the type of vi­o­lence the gov­ern­ment is plan­ning to in­sti­gate dur­ing the up­com­ing PC polls.  
These are the re­sults of the ab­sence of a Po­lice Com­mis­sion that would en­sure the in­de­pend­ence in their af­fairs, the ab­sence of an Elec­tions Com­mis­sion, of which the Com­mis­sion­er has turned in­to a tool of the gov­ern­ment at pres­ent and the ab­sence of the Pub­lic Serv­ices Com­mis­sion. These in­sti­tu­tions ex­ist but on­ly nom­i­nal­ly; the as­pi­ra­tions en­vis­aged from the 17th Amend­ment are not prev­a­lent to­day. So I don’t think it is re­al­is­ti­cal­ly pos­si­ble for us to be­lieve or en­sure that the up­com­ing elec­tions would be free or fair.

"How­ev­er, the gov­ern­ment should al­so re­al­ise that if they re­sort to stran­gling the pol­i­cies and pro­grammes of the new­ly elec­ted Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil in the North, this coun­try would qual­i­fy for an­oth­er in­sur­rec­tion"
 
Q: Why has a spe­cif­ic group of MPs been se­lec­ted to ad­dress the vot­ers at par­ty prop­a­gan­da ral­lies dur­ing the up­com­ing polls?
The par­ty would line up and iden­ti­fy the meet­ings to be held in the Cen­tral and North West­ern Prov­in­ces; those would be the main meet­ings. The par­ty would al­so iden­ti­fy speak­ers who should ad­dress the vot­ers at those main meet­ings. How­ev­er, any speak­er is free to ad­dress the prop­a­gan­da meet­ings held at grass­roots lev­els.  Such re­stric­tions have been im­posed to en­sure that the prop­er par­ty mes­sage will reach our vot­ers. It is very im­por­tant. Af­ter fias­cos with in­di­vid­u­als such as Day­a­siri, we de­ci­ded we can­not take any more chan­ces – we have to en­sure that the par­ty line is be­ing firm­ly es­tab­lish­ed in the pre­sen­ta­tions of the pub­lic speak­ers.

Q: Has the TNA’s choice of candidate for the NPC influenced the UNP to fol­low suit?
Well, in com­par­i­son to the type of peo­ple and se­lec­tions made by the UP­FA, our choices are far more su­pe­ri­or. We en­sure that can­di­dates who con­test un­der our um­brel­la are dedi­ca­ted and are of good char­ac­ter; they are not smug­glers, mur­der­ers or those who have en­gag­ed in any type of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. Pres­ent­ly, we see dai­ly re­ports on UP­FA pol­i­ti­cians of all stra­ta, en­gag­ed in brib­ery or cor­rup­tion be­ing ar­res­ted.  This is an is­sue of grave con­cern; we are very wor­ried about the fate of this coun­try. The UP­FA pol­i­ti­cians are at­tempt­ing to de­stroy the gold­en thread of the so­ci­ety in which peo­ple are liv­ing in peace and har­mo­ny.

"Dur­ing the pow­er of the UNP gov­ern­ments, to a very great ex­tent the trade un­ions did win their de­mands. I am not say­ing what they ach­ieved was a 100% vic­to­ry but there was tol­er­ance."

Q: The TNA has ex­pressed con­cerns about hav­ing to face the per­son­al­i­ty of the North­ern Prov­ince Gov­er­nor - a re­tired mili­ta­ry of­fi­cial, when im­ple­ment­ing pol­i­cies to en­sure the wel­fare of the Tam­il com­mun­i­ty re­sid­ing in the areas. How do you view this sit­ua­tion?
First­ly, we do not agree with this trend de­vel­oped by the gov­ern­ment to ap­point mili­ta­ry of­fi­cials in­to civ­il ad­min­is­tra­tive po­si­tions. It is a step to­wards sup­port­ing the gov­ern­ment’s dic­ta­to­ri­al rule in the coun­try.
How­ev­er, the gov­ern­ment should al­so re­al­ise that if they re­sort to stran­gling the pol­i­cies and pro­grammes of the new­ly elec­ted Pro­vin­cial Coun­cil in the North, this coun­try would qual­i­fy for an­oth­er in­sur­rec­tion. The frus­tra­tion would once again set in and there may be an up­ris­ing with­in the Tam­il com­mun­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the North and East.
Be­sides, the gov­ern­ment should al­so note that the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mun­i­ty would be watch­ing as to how they are con­duct­ing their role with con­cern to the in­de­pend­ence of the pro­vin­cial coun­ci­llors.

Q: Shouldn’t the dwin­dling op­po­si­tion be held re­spon­si­ble for the strength­en­ing of this gov­ern­ment, which you claim­ed is head­ing to­wards a dic­ta­to­ri­al rule?
The gov­ern­ment’s pow­er is strength­ened not by the op­po­si­tion, but be­cause they have a steam­roll ma­jor­i­ty in the Par­lia­ment. They have de­ple­ted the num­ber of op­po­si­tion mem­bers by buy­ing and pay­ing, and ex­ert­ing var­i­ous pres­sures on them by un­cov­er­ing their weak points through is­sues such as de­fault­ing on tax pay­ments, crim­i­nal ca­ses, cor­rup­tion charg­es etc. and hold­ing them ran­som to it.

Q: Are you say­ing while the gov­ern­ment bribes their way in­to cre­at­ing a mo­nop­o­ly in Par­lia­men­ta­ry pow­er, the op­po­si­tion can do noth­ing and is pow­er­less to act against it?  
Yes! We can’t do any­thing be­cause the Con­sti­tu­tion is weak; it does not al­low spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions to be tak­en against MPs who cross over in the Par­lia­ment from one par­ty to an­oth­er. This is why our lead­er cre­ated a draft Con­sti­tu­tion cov­er­ing such areas with loop­holes, which re­quire im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion.

Q: Do you feel like the pub­lic has ac­cep­ted the UNP’s pro­posed draft Con­sti­tu­tion?
The si­lent vot­ers – who don’t make a pub­lic dis­play of their po­lit­i­cal al­li­ances by shout­ing in ral­lies are very much sat­is­fied and ap­pre­ci­ate the pro­vi­sions laid out in the draft Con­sti­tu­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, they will si­lent­ly vote for the UNP, so that all citi­zens can ben­e­fit when the pro­vi­sions laid in the draft Con­sti­tu­tion are im­ple­men­ted in the coun­try.

Q: You were re­cent­ly ap­poin­ted as the Pres­i­dent of the UNP’s Trade Un­ion Wing (JSS). What rea­sons do you think have con­trib­uted to the pres­ent de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in the trade un­ion move­ment?
Dur­ing the pow­er of the UNP gov­ern­ments, to a very great ex­tent the trade un­ions did win their de­mands. I am not say­ing what they ach­ieved was a 100% vic­to­ry but there was tol­er­ance. But un­der this re­gime, there are on­ly threats. Through in­stil­ling fear and in­se­cur­i­ty, the gov­ern­ment ma­nip­u­la­tes per­son­nel in­to ab­stain­ing from trade un­ion ac­tions.
The lat­est ex­am­ples can be drawn from what be­came of the rail­way and bus strikes. Due to the pres­sure be­ing ex­er­ted on those who work, the em­ploy­ees do not par­tic­i­pate in trade un­ion ac­tiv­i­ties in fear of los­ing their live­li­hood - so much so, that they are even scared to take mem­ber­ship in a trade un­ion af­fili­ated with an op­po­si­tion par­ty be­cause most were vic­ti­mised – trans­fer­red from pil­lar to post.
Al­though usu­al­ly, the num­ber of mem­bers in a trade un­ion af­fili­ated with an op­po­si­tion par­ty would dwin­dle, pre­vi­ous­ly it has nev­er de­ple­ted in this man­ner. For ex­am­ple, al­though those in the Cey­lon Trans­port Board are able to car­ry on their du­ties un­til the age of 60, they are in­struc­ted to re­tire by the time they reach 57 be­cause the gov­ern­ment is well aware that the ma­jor­i­ty of se­nior of­fi­cials are UN­Pers. Like­wise, the gov­ern­ment is us­ing var­i­ous tac­tics to kill the mem­ber­ship for op­po­si­tion sup­por­ted trade un­ions.
 
Q: As the op­po­si­tion, what ac­tion is the UNP plan­ning to take if the gov­ern­ment de­cides to con­tin­ue with their plan of re­peal­ing pow­ers of 13A?
The Gov­ern­ment is bull­doz­ing ev­ery­thing in their quest for pow­er.  We are anx­ious­ly wait­ing to see the out­come of the Par­lia­men­ta­ry Se­lect Com­mit­tee re­port on the changes to 13A and the fact that it is be­ing held with­out the par­tic­i­pa­tion of a sin­gle op­po­si­tion mem­ber.

Q: Re­cent­ly, UNP Gen­er­al Sec­re­ta­ry Tis­sa At­ta­na­yake had sta­ted that the UNP’s pri­mary goal was to es­tab­lish a gov­ern­ment. Wouldn’t you say it’s a tough as­pi­ra­tion to reach, con­sid­er­ing the fact that the UNP has not won a sin­gle elec­tion for the past 15 years?
The on­ly rea­son for the gov­ern­ment’s con­tin­u­ous tri­umph at elec­tions and the op­po­si­tion’s de­feat is the ab­sence of free and fair elec­tions. Our vot­er base has not de­creased but the vot­ers have felt dis­cour­aged to cast their votes due to the mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tions com­mit­ted dur­ing the elec­tion pro­cess­es.
 They have lost their con­fi­dence in the dem­o­crat­ic proc­ess.  We be­lieve this can be changed through a very im­por­tant mes­sage and it needs to be tak­en down to the very grass­root lev­el; the cor­rup­tion and in­jus­ti­ces com­mit­ted by this gov­ern­ment and the man­ner in which the pub­lic is laid with the bur­den of pay­ing for the gov­ern­ment’s fi­nan­cial in­com­pe­tence.

Q: Al­though var­i­ous charg­es against the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue to mount, the gen­er­al pub­lic seems to be un­tain­ted by them. Why do you think this is?
See what hap­pened in the Mid­dle East! In­jus­ti­ces by the rul­ers con­tin­ued, but at a par­tic­u­lar­ly stage, the mass­es took to the streets and the rul­ers had to run. It won’t be long be­fore Sri Lan­ka faces a sim­i­lar fate. The whole econ­o­my will col­lapse, just like in Lib­ya and Egypt.  

Pix by Pra­deep Dil­ruk­sha­na
Order Gifts and Flowers to Sri Lanka. See Kapruka's top selling online shopping categories such as Toys, Grocery, Kids Toys, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Clothing and Electronics. Also see Kapruka's unique online services such as Money Remittence,Astrology, Courier/Delivery, Medicine Delivery and over 700 top brands. Also get products from Amazon & Ebay via Kapruka Gloabal Shop into Sri Lanka

  Comments - 1

Order Gifts and Flowers to Sri Lanka. See Kapruka's top selling online shopping categories such as Toys, Grocery, Kids Toys, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Clothing and Electronics. Also see Kapruka's unique online services such as Money Remittence,Astrology, Courier/Delivery, Medicine Delivery and over 700 top brands. Also get products from Amazon & Ebay via Kapruka Gloabal Shop into Sri Lanka

  • kumara Tuesday, 30 July 2013 08:35 AM

    point of view - the upcoming polls the big looser is UNP.
    The winner is PA.
    There is no deep plane to win or dream with UNP.As a opposition leader Mr.Ranil should have critical mindful plane to win upcoming polls. he has to have knowledge to protect his partners .that is main thing to be understand. good luck.

Add comment

Comments will be edited (grammar, spelling and slang) and authorized at the discretion of Daily Mirror online. The website also has the right not to publish selected comments.

Reply To:

Name - Reply Comment

Order Gifts and Flowers to Sri Lanka. See Kapruka's top selling online shopping categories such as Toys, Grocery, Kids Toys, Birthday Cakes, Fruits, Chocolates, Clothing and Electronics. Also see Kapruka's unique online services such as Money Remittence,Astrology, Courier/Delivery, Medicine Delivery and over 700 top brands. Also get products from Amazon & Ebay via Kapruka Gloabal Shop into Sri Lanka

RECOMMENDED

dailymirror.lk

UDA owned land in Thalawathugoda; UDA Minister Prasanna Ranatunga under the spotlight for forceful occupation of reserved land

dailymirror.lk

Loss-making SMIB faces political pressure in recovering loans

dailymirror.lk

Baltimore Bridge Collapse: MV Dali, SL authorities anchored in mystery?

dailymirror.lk

Has Sri Lanka become a potential hub for the illegal wildlife trade?

On March 26, a couple arriving from Thailand was arrested with 88 live animal

dailymirror.lk

Spotlight on Moragahakanda Development Project Moragolla villagers lose livelihoods and down to one meal a day

According to villagers from Naula-Moragolla out of 105 families 80 can afford

dailymirror.lk

Ambitious Sri Lankan jobseekers ‘trafficked into Ukraine war zones’

Is the situation in Sri Lanka so grim that locals harbour hope that they coul

dailymirror.lk

Western purple-faced langurs see blue!

A recent post on social media revealed that three purple-faced langurs near t

Most Viewed in News

1

Sri Lankan among NASA’s new crew for next simulated Mars journey

2

April 15 declared a government holiday

3

SL on alert on possible genocide allegations by Canada

4

Confusion remains if April 15 is a bank holiday

5

Street food vendor arrested for verbally harassing foreigner

6

Complaint lodged over Piumi Hansamali's possession of Gota’s Range Rover

MIRROR CRICKET

dailymirror.lk

Chamari Athapaththu sets big goal for T20 World Cup

19 Apr 2024 - 5     - 883

dailymirror.lk

How does CSK get best out of Pathirana?

16 Apr 2024 - 16     - 3394

dailymirror.lk

Mendis, Mathews move up in ICC Test Rankings

10 Apr 2024 - 0     - 1439

dailymirror.lk

Chamodi, Dewmi spins Sri Lanka U19 Women to big win

09 Apr 2024 - 3     - 656

More

TODAY'S HEADLINES

Debt Restructuring Talks: Bondholders Fear Regime Change Impact

5 hours ago

Don’t be deceived by NPP and Cardinal Ranjith: UNP

5 hours ago

Emirates halts check-in for connections, UL cancels flights to Dubai

5 hours ago

Plans afoot to obtain “Blue Flag Beaches” certification for SL beaches

5 hours ago

dailymirror.lk

dailymirror.lk

Hardik fined Rs 12 lakh for violating IPL code of conduct after win over Punjab Kings

19 Apr 2024

dailymirror.lk

Chamari Athapaththu sets big goal for T20 World Cup

19 Apr 2024

dailymirror.lk

How does CSK get best out of Pathirana?

16 Apr 2024

dailymirror.lk

Mendis, Mathews move up in ICC Test Rankings

10 Apr 2024

More