By
C.A.Chandraprema
Last Thursday, at the UNP executive-committee meeting held at Sirikotha in Kotte to welcome the common candidate of the opposition, Tissa Attanayake made a brief speech that probably catapulted him from being merely the party general secretary to being a national leader of the UNP in his own right.
The most thunderous applause and shouts of approval at that meeting were reserved for Tissa. In the presence of Ranil Wickremesinghe, Sajith Premadasa, Ravi Karunanayake, Karu Jayasuriya, Maithripala Sirisena, Rajitha Senaratne, and Mangala Samaraweera, who were all present on stage, Tissa said:
“People criticised and even vilified me in the recent past, but I will always say what has to be said. If someone thinks that we can go on this journey forgetting the UNPers, I have to say that cannot be done. (loud cheers and applause) If anyone says we can go on this journey without the green colour then I say, forget this journey. It is only with the UNP, the green colour and the elephant symbol and our support that this journey can be successful. I got calls from our organisers who said that unless the green colour comes to the fore, it will be difficult to mobilise grassroots support…. Sajith Premadasa called me this morning and spoke to me about my pain of mind. I told him that the only pain of mind that I have is whether justice will be done to UNPers. That is the only pain of mind I have (loud applause) For the past six months the websites have been attacking me because I worked indefatigably to get Sajith his rightful place which I did with the concurrence of the party leader. I repeat, with the concurrence of the party leader. (thunderous applause) The UNP will be strengthened only if the leader and Sajith Premadasa go forward together.“(applause)
In the course of his short but emotionally charged speech, Tissa Attanayake complained that for the past several days reports have been appearing on various websites that he will be crossing over to the government for a bribe of Rs. 500 million. In outlining his own history in the UNP, Tissa said that he was not able to cast his vote at the 2000 parliamentary elections held during the Chandrika Kumaratunga years because he was in the Bogambara jail. Tissa said further during his speech – “UNPers can’t be crushed again. UNPers have to have their due place. If we don’t get the support of the UNPers at the village level we will be in trouble. If someone says that we have another voice and that we don’t need UNPers, this journey will be disrupted. UNPers who suffered for decades and said they want a UNP president and a UNP government have made an enormous sacrifice. From 1994 we have not yet been able to do justice to UNPers who suffered and faced repression. We should have the ability to do justice to them through whatever government we help set up.” (loud shouts of approval and applause).
In what can only be interpreted as an open expression of his disappointment that a UNP candidate was not being fielded, Tissa said further: “We wanted to unite all opposition forces behind us. When Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera started his movement we held discussions with him to win him over to our cause. We thought that as the party with the biggest base and a countrywide village level organisation, the presidential candidate should be from the UNP. We fought for that but we have had to change that stance…. I say again if you are to make a success of this project give UNPers their rightful place. You can’t make a success of this by being allergic to UNPers and the green colour…”
All of this was said to intermittent shouts of approval and applause from the audience which was made up of grassroots UNP activists from the villages. This last comment about being ‘allergic’ to the green colour and to UNPers was an obvious reference to the common candidate Maithripala Sirisena’s repeated insistence at his first press conference and also during the Sirasa TV Satana programme that he had NOT crossed over to the UNP and that he will NEVER become a member of the UNP. (Readers can watch Tissa’s speech on the following link: http://www.dailymirror.lk/57443/i-won-t-join-the-govt-tissa).
Tissa Attanayake’s speech and the manner in which it was received by the UNP ex-co members present clearly shows that they are having serious misgivings about the common candidate project. The situation was not helped at all by Mangala Samaraweera trying to reassure SLFP members at a press conference last week by saying that even though SLFPers are being told that when Maithri becomes president he will make Ranil the executive prime minister, there is no such thing as an executive prime minister and that the prime minister is the head of the cabinet. What made things worse that these words meant to reassure SLFPers was not made at a common candidate’s press conference but at a UNP press conference with the green colour and elephant symbol displayed prominently in the background! One would have thought that at a UNP press conference, the fears being addressed would be the fears of the UNPers. But what we saw last week was the very opposite.
Even in the best of circumstances, the amount of SLFP votes that the common candidate gets will be just a fraction of the UNP votes that he will get – so one would think that priority has to be given to reassuring UNP voters by saying that when the common candidate becomes the president, he will indeed hand over executive powers to Ranil Wickremesinghe. But what has by now become painfully obvious is that all those on the common candidate’s platform including the common candidate himself, are more intent on reassuring SLFPers than UNPers even though they are completely dependent on the UNP vote base. Little wonder that people like Tissa Attanayake are so agitated. Another reason for this discontent would be the feeling that it is the UNP that has finally been left holding the baby.
When Sarath Fonseka became the common candidate for the January 2010 election, the UNP, JVP, TNA, and all other opposition stakeholders were prominently present to shoulder the responsibility of promoting the common opposition candidate. While the UNP provided the bulk of the votes and grassroots contacts, the JVP spearheaded the political campaign and Fonseka’s meetings were a sea of red. This time however, the JVP is not joining the common candidate’s campaign. R.Sampanthan made various sympathetic noises but the TNA has not yet pledged support to the common candidate. The JHU is also taking an inordinate amount of time in expressing their support to the common candidate. Mano Ganesan and Azath Salley are nowhere to be seen. Even Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera’s response is lukewarm. He has not come out for Maithripala Sirisena even to the extent he came out in favour of Shirani Bandaranayake. All this is obviously a cause for stress within the UNP. If Maithripala is defeated that defeat will look more like a defeat for the UNP than a defeat for the opposition.
Naturally, people like Tissa Attanayake who is in daily contact with UNP organizers countrywide will be concerned because hideous damage will be caused to the UNP in the event of defeat. What makes that doubly unacceptable is the fact that the UNP was in such an upbeat mood just eight weeks ago in the wake of the Uva PC election.
Courtesy: Sunday Island