24 May 2018 11:06 pm
Mr. Wickremesinghe said this during a function held at UNP headquarters Sirikotha in connection with the assuming of duties by party’s new national organizer Navin Dissanayake this morning.
“Young members of the UNP will be given some responsibilities and posts within the party and these will be finalized by the working committee next week,” the Prime Minister said.
“We have already organized the party and people such as Navin Dissanayake has been given responsibilities. Young members of the party will also be given posts and these will be finalized by the working committee next week. Responsibilities and powers are given to new office bearers. It is these office bearers such as Mr, Dissanayake, the new General Secretary, Deputy Leader and the Assistant leader who will have to take over the party in the future,” the Prime Minister added.
The Prime Minister said the UNP had undertaken a reorganization process like it did in the 1970s under the then leader late J. R. Jayewardene where people such as Mr. Dissanayake’s father late Minister Gamini Dissanayake also played a pioneering role. “ We have created a new team that will take over the party in the future unlike the Sri Lanka Podujana Party (SLPP) which is going to be led by a retired military officer in the future. What it is trying to do is to create Rajapaksa regime 2. Most of the journalists in the media today may not exist if another Rajapaksa regime comes back. The media may not publish this statement of mine but that does not matter even if they don’t,” he said.
Mr. Dissanayake said there should be tangible reforms in the UNP so that party members feel a change. He said the party should be made to travel on the avenue of victory. He said the efforts made by the present UNP leader to build up the party had reaped results to some extent. “There should be a collective effort to put the party on the right track,” he said.
General Secretary Akila Viraj Kariyawasam also called for a collective effort to make the party victorious. (Yohan Perera)