Campaign trail:

UNP troubles not over

by Wijitha NAKKAWITA

The Western Provincial council election campaign especially for the Opposition political parties had reached an impasse, a blind alley.

During the past week when the beleaguered UNP leader had to face incendiary flak from his own ranks at Sirikotha, true to form, he cast the burden of managing the western provincial election on the shoulders of the deputy leader Karu Jayasuriya.

At propaganda meetings held in Colombo West and Borella Wickremesinghe was reported saying that President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the UPFA government were moving towards a dictatorship and the UNP was going to stop it.

At the same meeting Colombo District member Ravi Karunanayake had gone on to say that the UNP will win all the seats in Colombo but it was not clear whether he meant the constituencies in the Colombo city or Colombo district as explained by Prof G.L.Peiris in Parliament, Karunanayake was the master of irrelevancies.

However, UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayaka was reported saying that the government which split the JVP and the JHU was trying to destroy the UNP too and the party should stop it now.

Too clever

The talk of town is at least among political personalities wags was that Ranil despite the severe criticism from his own ranks was too clever for his antagonists. As a forgone conclusion the UNP would undoubtedly lose the western provincial poll given its past record including the two recent defeats at the Central and Northwestern Provincial polls routed by the UPFA that won some electorates with 75 or 80 per cent votes polled in its favour. Therefore when the results of the latest provincial poll were known he would be able to tell his critics that even with Karu Jayasuriya UNP failed to win. Wickremesinghe would at least have someone who could share the blame, some UNP members who oppose Ranil observed.

No hard evidence

Yet that was not all in the campaign seen as a non-starter for the UNP that was still insisting the government was practising a form of terrorism in the south, as stated by Kurunegala District UNP member in Parliament few days ago. The unfortunate problem of such critics was that they had no clear cases of state terrorism to show as there were no names, places and dates on which real persons had been subjected to state terrorism. There were several print and electronic media institutions that go before the public with severe criticism of the UPFA and President Mahinda Rajapaksa but these institutions their newspapers and channels remain open and unhampered. The so-called persecution or suppression of dissent or critics of the government had not been proved though some opposition politicians repeat the allegation often without hard evidence.

Still with the clear division of the UNP coming out to the open there were other interesting incidents reported about the last Sirikotha meeting.

Senior UNP official, parliamentarian Rukman Senanayake had requested Wickremesinghe to step down from the leadership in the interest of the party and another more junior but aspiring parliamentarian Sajith Premadasa was reported saying he would not want to be the UNP nominee for the next Presidential election but would consider contesting the Presidential election after the next one. This remark shed some light on the ambition of some of the present frontline UNP members as there seemed to be people like Sajith who perhaps believed they could lead the disorganised and digressive UNP to some form of revival. Whether there were people sufficiently naive to accept just anyone for leadership was the open question.

Yet some political observers questioned the wisdom of the UNP leader who was doing a tight rope walk to keep his position in the political arena to retain it despite each obstacle or setback suffered after the UNP lost election after election, still the troubles of the UNP are not over whether Karu Jayasuriya or Wickremesinghe leads the campaign.

The initiative does not appear to be on the side of the opposition any more especially the main opposition party that had to change its policy without attempting to swim against the tide.