Sajith a youthful candidate for the younger generations – PM

The United National Party (UNP) has presented a youthful candidate for the upcoming presidential election to fulfill the aspirations of the young generation, party leader, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe pointed out yesterday.

The Premier was addressing a special discussion held at ‘Sirikotha’, the party headquarters, together with the party leaders of the United National Front (UNF), district organizers and the electorate organizers, about the propaganda campaign for the upcoming election.

Wickremesinghe said the present government has been implementing numerous programmes to develop the country despite the heavy debt burden the country was incurring from the previous government.

This included hospital development, reducing the price of essential drugs, building 21 new university faculties, building new schools and renovation and construction of roads. The Government had allocated the highest amount of money for the health and the education sectors in the country’s history, he added.

“Minister Sajith Premadasa is carrying out housing projects throughout the country. He developed the infrastructure facilities in Hambantota. People will the benefit from these projects within the next five years and then no one would be able to stop the United National Party being in the power for 20 years more,” the Prime Minister said.

The presidential candidate of the UNF and the UNP’s Deputy Leader, Minister Sajith Premadasa, addressing the meeting, said that the unity within the party was always their foundation for victory in the election.

He said winning the election was not a victory just for him but, also for the people of this country.

“It is essential to learn lessons from the present while impartially studying past incidents in political history. I am also a politician who learned lessons from the past”, he pointed out.

The minister expressed his gratitude to Premier Wickremesinghe, the party’s working committee and the party supporters for naming him as the Presidential Candidate.

“The Prime Minister had made sacrifices on several occasions. This time also he made this sacrifice to propose my name to the Working Committee. It was a great strength towards the unity of our party.”

The General Secretary of the UNP, Minister Akila Viraj Kariyawasam said various groups, parties and Members of Parliament were gathering around the UNP’s candidate without any conditions at present.

“Our unity now has developed to a level where no one can weaken it. The Premier took a good decision at the working committee to name the candidate while protecting the party’s unity. The future of the UNP depends on our candidate’s victory,” he said.

(Source: Daily News – By Asela Liyanage and Lahiru Fernando)