FOCUS

Young guns to the fore

Senesinghe is a strong believer in fighting for one's freedom. He was twice shot by the police at the Jana Bala Mehumaya rally, which was held in July 2001 where he suffered from bullet injuries. This incident happened when he tried to save a man who was injured.

Speaking to The Sunday Leader, he explained how he built his law practice after graduating from Law College where he worked as a senior and a junior lawyer, appearing for former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Gamini Athukorala, Karu Jayasuriya, Arumugam Thondaman and Rauf Hakeem, after which he also got professionally involved in several UNP cases. Senesinghe also appeared against several senior PA and Samasamaja political leaders.

Senesinghe who recently appeared twice in the TV show Visanvadaya as an independent lawyer, had prompted him to join politics.

"Politics is something which I never wanted to do," said Senesinghe. "But after several UNP members and the former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe invited me to contest in this election, I decided to contest," he noted.

He is a great admirer of several late and present leaders of the UNP such as Gamini Dissanayake, Lalith Athulathmudali, J. R. Jayewardene, R. Premadasa, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Gamini Athukorala. Commenting on the politics in the country he said, "In the political scene I have seen a lot of corruption in Sri Lanka. When I walk into the shanties around Colombo, I realise how clean they are even though they live in abject poverty. Their requests are for a tap, a toilet or a place to bath," he stated.

He believes that politicians usually get millions as commissions but do nothing to uplift the living standards of these people. Hence if it can be legally done these commissions should go into a trust.

As a young politician who looks up to Ranil Wickremesinghe, Karu Jayasuriya and Gamini Athukorala as examples, he stressed, "I would want to make a change." He sees women's limited contribution to politics as a major drawback as they have the ability to work hard and bring about a less corrupt government.

Senesinghe also noted that the younger generation should be taught on more practical avenues to be more creative and hard working.

The UNP has far thinking plans with regard to infrastructure, foreign investment and other basic facilities. "I do not need to do much in professing this but to support them. The UNP did very well with a minus 1.5 and bringing this up to 5.8 economic development within two years."

However, he admitted: "UNP did one mistake by changing the concessionary oriented programme - not giving any priority to the poor who don't wait for the country to develop. They won't wait for sky scrapers, highways, any other economic development, or what the stock market would do to them. I believe in sacrificing one percent of the development rate to uplift the standards of the poor, especially in housing," said Senasinghe who is a great admirer of R. Premadasa's housing programme.

He stated that the UPFA cannot play with the economy because they are guided by the fiscal responsibility bill. "All their false promises given to the people will come to light," he said pointing out that the country is not going to get a single cent that the IMF and the World Bank promised, which is the largest amount the country has got in the last decade.

Meanwhile, having studied the policy plan of the country which would have brought tremendous development programmes he said the people will soon realise that the JVP and PA are at loggerheads.

"They are in no shape to maintain a government. The main issue was fertiliser which they said that they will bring down the price but what they have done is contradictory," he added.

"The price of mada pohara was raised by Rs. 250 which for an acre they have to use three times as much as urea. So the farmer has to spend more than what they spent when the UNP was in power," he explained. "What the county needs in the future are: IT industry, communications, infrastructure development, highways to bring it in par with Singapore, and these can be achieved by 2015 if the UNP is elected to power," he added.