Ranil-Sajith phone call today to settle UNP crisis

UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe will telephone the party’s former deputy leader Sajith Premadasa today to fix a date to meet to resolve internecine problems that have plagued the country’s main opposition political party for years.

The move comes in the backdrop of violent clashes between rival factions in the party at Matara last Saturday and Monday’s Working Committee meeting where mem- bers of the party’s highest decision making body urged the high command to get together and thrash out difference in view of possible parliamentary and presidential elections next year.

The Working Committee agreed to the appointment of a High-Level Council with one-time Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya to head it. The Council was recommended by the party leader amidst pressure-groups asking for his replacement following a string of electoral defeats and set- backs since the 2005 Presidential election.

At the four-hour session of the Working Committee, Mr. Wickremesinghe said he was prepared to step back and look after the party’s political agenda, while handing over the organisational structure to a High-Level Council which would supervise party branches. He said he was prepared to hand over the powers given by the Working Committee to him as party leader to this Council.

A suggestion that Mr. Wickremesinghe remain Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition and hand over the party leadership to someone else was rejected by Mr. Wickremesinghe who argued that the party leader would need to be the leader of the parliamentary team. A team comprising General Secretary Tissa Attanayake, Vice President Daya Pelpola, Srinath Perera, Wijeyadasa Rajapaksha, Kabir Hasheem, A.C. Thasim and others were to study the Working Committee’s powers that could be vested with this HighLevel Council.

Former Speaker Joseph Michael Perera moved that Mr. Wickremesinghe, Mr. Jayasuriya and Mr. Premadasa get together and have a media conference the next day (Tuesday), but Mr. Wickremesinghe suggested Wednesday as he was due to meet Indian External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid on Tuesday. Party senior Gamini Jayawickrama Perera, however, said that Wednesday was “not a good day” and Mr. Premadasa said he needed time to think about the matter.