Four members of the UNP who took part in the ‘Satana’ political talk show on Sirasa TV got into trouble in answering questions on party democracy.

UNP Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa, Chairman of the UNP Youth Wing Ruwan Wijewardene and two MPs who recently joined the party, Wasantha Senanayake and Navin Dissanayake, took part in the program.

When posed the question as to how they were promoting democracy in the country when there were issues of lack of democracy in the UNP itself, they found out that credible answers were hard to come by.

Questions were raised as to how party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe could appoint a new General Secretary immediately, without proper consultation with respective leadership bodies, after the former General Secretary Tissa Attanayake defected to the government a few days ago. Kabir Hashim was appointed to the vacated post almost immediately.

Deputy Leader of the UNP Sajith Premadasa had to admit that he could name no person to the Working Committee. The participants avoided to answer the question as to who appoints the working committee with Wijewardena making a faint attempt to answer by saying that he was appointed since he was the Chairman of the Youth Wing.

Meanwhile, Wasantha Senanayake, who had defected to the UNP three weeks ago, stated that he believed there should be a more open system to elect members to the UNP Working Committee. However, Wijewardena stated that the party leader should have the right to take immediate measures at an emergency.