Parliamentarian Ashu Marasinghe says that United National Party (UNP) is a brand and winning votes of UNP voters after leaving UNP is not possible.
He made this comment in response to a rumor that UNP Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa is preparing to form another alliance with parties affiliated to United National Front if he is not given the UNP Presidential candidacy.
He further stated:
"If you analyze the past election history, you can find this. If you take the history of the Presidential elections from 1982 to 2015 our UNP candidate won. If we look at the number of votes, it is 81%. Among the elections that we lost, when we consider the 4 elections of Chandrika Bandaranaike and Mahinda Rajapaksa the maximum votes obtained were 74%.This is the value of the brand. "
This means that the UNP members do not vote outside the UNP. That is what has been shown throughout the history.What happened to the group that broke away from the UNP and formed the Eagle?. Back then we saw that people who were considered giants and known by the entire world did it.That party was built by three giants after breaking away.In the end, nothing happened.Therefore, you cannot win by yourself without having the UNP brand in hand.The party that brakes away will lose and will be useless.
But UNP will remain stable. That is what history has shown us. Therefore, if all the UNP MPs get together and give a fight, the UNP appointed candidate can win."
(Mirror)