Navin sounds ominous warning to his party

Navin Dissanayake

If the UNP couldn’t resolve a number of serious issues within the next three months, the government might collapse within six months, Minister of Plantations Navin Dissanayake said addressing a meeting in Nuwara Eliya, on Saturday.

Dissanayake said the defeat of the 70-year-old UNP by the four-month-old Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was truly an upsetting development.

“We must ask ourselves how it happened. We are all to blame. I did not liaise with our electoral organisers enough. Although we scraped through in Nuwara Eliya, that is not enough.”

The Plantations Minister said the non availability of fertiliser towards the end of 2017 and the government’s failure to give jobs to UNPers were some of the main reasons for the UNP’s defeat. The party had also ignored the Sinhala Buddhist voters, he added. “If we don’t resolve these issues within the next three months, the government won’t last another six months. We have informed our leader of this situation. A lot of people ask me whether this will be like our government between 2001 and 2004.”

Dissanayake said there should be an immediate change in the party’s structure and young leaders should be promoted. “We have a lot of capable people and a lot of charismatic figures.”

(Source: The Island – By Rathindra Kuruwita)