Ranil sets out his position as UNP leader
UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe set out his and his party’s position on Thursday over the feuding with his deputy, Sajith Premadasa, over issues related to the April 25 parliamentary elections.
“The working committee of the United National Party met today to discuss about the parliamentary election. We agreed on several factors that would be included into the Alliance constitution. We request them to include those factors to the alliance constitution as there are several legal issues regarding that constitution.
“That matter should be resolved by having a meeting between both ours and their lawyers. We also decided about the symbol. John Amaratunga (MP) made a proposal to contest under the elephant symbol. Last week we discussed to provide the swan party to them.
“We first decided to contest under the elephant symbol but later we decided to meet the Election Commission to discuss regarding elephant, swan and heart symbols. The Election Commissioner said that heart symbol would not be given to any party.
“If any other Party is using our symbol, we should give up our symbol and give it to the commission. Then any party could request it. Therefore, we were advised that if we give up a symbol such as elephant symbol, that we will not be able to get it back. However, according to our party constitution elephant is our symbol. We cannot remove elephant without amending our constitution. The elephant symbol is an ancient one which is therefore, from the time of D.S Senanayake.
“Since they wanted a recognized symbol, they discussed about the swan symbol, Swan belongs to Samagi Prajathantharawadi Peramuna. If they are joining that party we can discuss how we could contest with alliance secretary and Ravi Karaunanayake ( MP).
“Alliance Secretary Ranjith Maddumabandara and Ravi Karunanayake were due to meet last Friday. However, there was no resolution though they met Friday. Therefore, we discussed on the matter and decided to contest under the Elephant symbol.
As a result, we are ready to go for an amendment in our party constitution. We are planning to include our amendment into alliance constitution and get the approval of the Election Commission. Then we and other parties could join the alliance. Then we can contest under the Samagi Jana Balawegaya.
In the United National Party, we need to finalize the legal situation. The legal matters are not completed, only after that we could sign it. I will call the working committee meeting to discuss about contesting the election, we must discuss and get on with our other work. We would allow the alliance to carry out the planning for the election.”