‘We will continue to agitate for reforms’, says Karu
UNP Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya said proposals for reforms should be ratified at the party convention today as agreed to by the Working Committee, failing which the UNP would lose all credibility and forfeit the right to go before the people as a democratic political entity.

In a statement on the eve of the Party’s annual convention, Mr. Jayasuriya said they would continue to agitate for party reforms, stating that “there are among us people without whom the party would not have scored the one victory the party did in the past 17 years.”

The statement said that the agitation stems from the understanding that the problem lay not with the leader but the party structure itself. “We believe that if more democratic safeguards are instituted and if decision-making processes are made more democratic, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe will emerge stronger. It is no secret that the party is in serious crisis and that the present party structure has yielded electoral defeats of a magnitude and frequency that is scandalous,” the statement said.

It added that the faults were not so much in personality and credibility but that the archaic party structure that was not in tune with the times was unable to attract the best political minds in the country. “The UNP has to transform itself into a true party of the people, the kind of political organisation that will have room for another R. Premadasa and is sensitive to the pulse of the people,” it said.

The statement also added that those who hold the view that the powers of the leader should remain intact and no changes are necessary in the party are those who lack the strength of character to stand on their own feet, who are so incompetent they cannot shine except in the reflected light of better people who hold this view.”