By Franklin R. Satyapalan
Senior SLFPers will attempt to persuade ministers now distanced from President Chandrika Kumaratunga to attend today’s 50th anniversary celebrations of the SLFP, Fisheries Minister Mahinda Rajapakse said yesterday.

"I will try to persuade them to come but I don’t know whether I will succeed," Rajapakse who is a senior vice president of the SLFP said.

He discounted speculation that Mr. S. B. Dissanayake who is general secretary of the SLFP will be removed from this position at today’s celebration saying "this is totally untrue."

"This is the 50th anniversary celebration and not a party convention," he said.

There will be two major speeches made by President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremenayake at today’s meeting, Rajapakse said.

Analysts expect some important pronouncements from the president on this occasion given the political crisis in which the government is now embroiled.

President Kumaratunga last week told a meeting of representatives of organisations affiliated to the SLFP that she will act firmly against "traitors" at the next party convention.

"The three presidents of the SLFP have already been members of our family and I am the third. As long as I hold this position I won’t allow various people to run party affairs in any manner they wish. These things must be done the way I want," the President said.

She had also said that she had no objection to anybody taping her remarks and giving it to those concerned.

The President who named Ministers S. B. Disssanayake and G. L. Peiris in her speech was particularly harsh about what she had to say about them.