Leaders and Important Members
- See List of Members of the Lanka Sama Samaja Party.
The LSSP has never had a formal leader. In the period immediately after its formation, Dr Colvin R de Silva was elected President, but the post was done away with later. For many years, NM Perera was the leader of the LSSP Parliamentary Group and was recognised by the public as the party leader. However, the actual leadership has always been that of a group represented in the various bureaux of the Central Committee.
A large proportion of the leadership of the Left in Sri Lanka started their political lives in the LSSP. This is even true of the political right; for example, Esmond Wickremasinghe (the father of Ranil Wickremasinghe) was a leading member of the party - before marrying the daughter of the wealthy press baron D. R Wijewardena and being appointed editor-in-chief of Lake House. W. Dahanayake, the later prime minister, was associated with the LSSP before gravitating right-wards (finally ending up in the UNP).
- Dr S.A. Wickremasinghe
- Philip Gunawardena
- Dr Colvin R de Silva
- Dr N.M. Perera
- Wilmot A. Perera
- Leslie Goonewardena
- Robert Gunewardena
- Edmund Samarakkody
- V. Karalasingham (Carlo)
- Vivienne Goonewardena
- S.C.C. Anthonipillai (Toni)
- Selina Perera
- Mark Anthony Bracegirdle
- Regi Siriwardena
- P. H. William de Silva
- Bernard Soysa
- P.D. Wimalasena
- Hector Abhayavardhana
- Doric De Souza
- G.P. Perera ('Elephant Perera')
- D.G. William ('Galle Face William')
- Cholomondely Goonewardena
- Wilfred Senanayake
- Anil Moonesinghe
- Seneka Bibile
- Osmund Jayaratne
- G.E.H. Perera
- Vasudewa Nanayakkara
- I. J. Wickrema
- Batty Weerakoon
- Tissa Vitarana
- Deshabandu Kalasuri Vishvaprasdini Dr. Tissa Abeysekara
- Carlo Fonseka
- V. S. Rajah ('Raja Sahodaraya')
The names in brackets were the pseudonyms used by V. Karalasingham, and S. C. C. Anthonypillai while underground during the Second World War which continued to be used as nicknames long after they were no longer required for secrecy; and the nicknames given to the trade unionists G. P. Perera and D. G. William, from their original places of work, the Elephant cigarette factory and the Galle Face Hotel.
Read more about this topic: Lanka Sama Samaja Party
Famous quotes containing the words leaders and, leaders, important and/or members:
“Unless the people can choose their leaders and rulers, and can revoke their choice at intervals long enough to test their measures by results, the government will be a tyranny exercised in the interests of whatever classes or castes or mobs or cliques have this choice.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.”
—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
“The presence of a grandparent confirms that parents were, indeed, little once, too, and that people who are little can grow to be big, can become parents, and one day even have grandchildren of their own. So often we think of grandparents as belonging to the past; but in this important way, grandparents, for young children, belong to the future.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.”
—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 12:12.