"UNP must lead the people towards correct direction"

by Nilantha Ilangamuwa

(September 03, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)
He was born on 17th March 1974 at Matara, the southern part of Sri Lanka and later became a journalist which is how people got to know about him. Now this young gentleman is a Member of Parliament of the main opposition party in Sri Lanka. Buddhika Pathirana, the young political star who is on a controversial political mission in Sri Lanka today, shared his political thoughts on the present situation with the Sri Lanka Guardian.

According to the information given on his web site: www.buddhikapathirana.org his vision is to: "........witness our community flourish with wealth, health and human values and to make each human being aware of his/her responsibilities and duties towards the society."

In an interview Buddhika’s feeling were optimistic regarding the United National Party. But, he said, "I cannot talk about the United National Front but I think as an individual political party we are going on the correct path most of the time".

Buddhika has clarified the UNP’s decision on the forthcoming 18th Amendment to the Constitution and says, "As a political party the UNP has strongly condemned this amendment which is intended for selfish political motivations; the power of the President and his family will be increased more than ever before. As far as my understanding this is very dangerous political motivation by the President which will curse entire society."

However when Sri Lanka Guardian questions that he is thinking are there any thing will happened to the forthcoming 18th amendment that UNP wither agreed or disagreed, he replied, "We the UNP have always opposed whenever anything came out which betrayed people's freedom and their rights. I can’t accept that we should keep mum if we cannot change things and I strongly believed that we must talk openly when we cannot agree with the government position. Then people will understand what is going on."

However a few weeks ago Mr. Ranil Wickramasinghe conducted discussions with the President without informing other members in the party. It seems that there is an internal conflict within the party over the leadership. When we raised this point to Buddhika, he refused to clarify the situation but rather tried to justify the leaderships throughout the entire history of the party. However, he did say that, "...... our leaders were very keen on discussion with others over every crucial moment of politics in Sri Lanka". He came out with a few examples including the Mano-Malik talks during the Chandrika administration.

Meanwhile there are party members who raised points against him in the meeting on Monday over the event organised by the Socio People Developments Foundation recently. According to Buddhika, "I invited three members of parliament to attend the ceremony but our own party members were busy with some television programme. So then Namal Rajapaksa and Anarkalee Akrsha who are MPs of the ruling party attended the event. Some of media thought that I had done wrong with my party." He went on to say, "As I explained there is no disciplinary action against me. Furthermore I explained to the party, 'who can says that I’m helping the government because I married to a daughter of the lawyer who is strong SLFPer also the leader attained to discussed with the President at the Temple trees without knowing others in the party'".

Over the present situation Buddhika observed, "I feel most of people are now getting to understand what this government is really doing the name of power. They are abolishing total freedom of the Country while centralizing all powers into one family. In this context as the party which has long history the UNP must lead the people toward corrected directions."