UNP Deputy Leader with the other party seniors at the party’s activists gathering in Kantale
Pic by Pradeep Pathirana  

• Will reorganise UNP and will make it a vibrant force   

By Yohan Perera  

Time is ripe to appoint a UNP MP to Parliament from the national list, and it will be done shortly, its Deputy Leader Ruwan Wijewardene said over the weekend.  

Speaking to party activists in Kantale in the Trincomalee District, Mr. Wijewardene said party seniors will discuss about appointing someone from the national list to Parliament shortly and go-ahead with the exercise.   
“There is a wide demand that UNP should appoint someone to Parliament. Our decision was to wait for about a year to see the development in the House before appointing our national list MP. However, the time is ripe for us to appoint an MP through the national list slot. We shall talk to our leader about it and will do it soon,” Mr. Wijewardene said.   Also, he said there is a demand that UNP and SJB should merge. Even those in SJB have called for such an exercise. “However we will reorganise UNP and will make it a vibrant force no matter whether SJB will merge with us or not,” he said in this regard.  

“UNP was divided as a result of a disagreement between two groups while some outsiders also got the SJB Leader to leave us to form another party.  

It was these persons from other parties who went and supported the government to enact the 20th Amendment to the constitution,” he added.

  
“We have now decided to develop UNP’s own Tamil and Muslim Leaders. Some of the Tamil and Muslim parties which worked with us in the past had got into the habit of joining the government whenever we lose,” he also said.  
He said UNP should be ready to meet the current demand for a vibrant and powerful opposition and therefore urged all those who have left the party to come back to the fold.   

• UNP was divided as a result of a disagreement between two groups while some outsiders also got the SJB Leader to leave us to form another party