D.E.W. Gunasekara, General Secretary of CPSL

D.E.W. Gunasekara, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka has completed 60 years in politics.

D.E.W. Gunasekara after his secondary education entered the Public Service at the age of 19 attached to the Department of Inland Revenue. Having enhanced higher education while in service he held the post of Investigating Officer and Assessor of Inland Revenue.

He was a student of politics from his young days influenced by the powerful Trade Union and Left Movementsand an ardent student of international affairs. Attending Marxist Classes conducted by the Communist Party Leaders, he enhanced his knowledge on Marxism and other social sciences. He joined the Communist Party of Sri Lanka on 24 October 1958.

When Pieter Keuneman, General Secretary of the Communist Party, was appointed as the Sri Lanka’s first Minister of Housing and Construction in the United Front Government, D.E.W. Gunasekara was chosen as the Private Secretary to the Ministry. In the year 1972, D.E.W. was elected to the Central Committee at the 8th National Congress of the Communist Party. Having left the Public Service in 1976, he became a full timer of the Party. On his being elected to the Party’s Political Bureau, he functioned the Party’s first International Secretary.

He was a functionary in the Editorial staff of the party newspapers ‘Mawbima’ Sinhala weekly, ‘Forward’ English weekly and ‘Aththa’ Sinhala Daily. 

He was a member of the Party’s official delegations to Socialist countries, attending Party Congresses of fraternal Parties. He attended theoretical conferences of fraternal parties and communist periodicals and institutions such as World Marxist Review. He entered Sri Lanka Parliament in 1986, 2004 and 2010. He functioned both as a leading member of opposition and the Government and held several Ministerial Posts. 

He held the post of General Secretary of the CPSL as from 2001 during which period, he was confronted with domestic and international challenges. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and consequent onslaught on the Marxist movement, Comrade D.E.W. valiantly joined the party’s ideological struggle. The hallmark of his political career was his commitment for National Unity, Left Unity, and Struggle against neoliberalism. 

Dew, who belongs to the third generation of Sri Lanka’s Left Movement, is the most senior Left politician in the country.