Premadasa's death puts his party in firing line

SRI Lanka's slain president, Mr Ranasinghe Premadasa, who will be cremated today in accordance with Buddhist rites, has left a political vacuum in the ruling United National Party (UNP). Such was the personality of the man, a ''hands-on'' president who was driven to supervise even the minutest detail in the implementation of policy, that critics castigated his style of governance calling it a ''one-man show''.

A man of boundless energy, who was rousing his officials before five in the morning with questions and newspaper criticisms, Mr Premadasa developed a style of personalised government that inevitably made him the epicentre of all political activity and left no perceptible successor.

This void has now become the central problem for the ruling United National Party (UNP) which has enjoyed power continuously for an unprecedented 16 years.

At a crucial time when three elections will be held during the next two years, beginning with provincial polls later this month, Sri Lanka's governing party finds itself without a clear, nationally acceptable leader.

When former president Junius Jayewardene bowed out in 1988 after serving two terms as executive president, the UNP had a choice. There were at least three contenders - Mr Premadasa; former national security minister, Mr Lalith Athulathmudali, who was assassinated eight days before the president, and their cabinet colleague, Mr Gamini Dissanayake.

Mr Premadasa was finally elected in December 1988 in a close contest, punctuated by violent clashes, with former prime minister Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike. But now the UNP is bereft of a leader who has the charisma and the popular image needed to win elections and continue in power.