• Stresses Parliament must be dissolved on 23 April and fresh elections held

The JanathaVimukthiPeramuna (JVP) yesterday expressed its satisfaction over the Government succeeding to gazette the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, adding it was pleased that at least certain dictatorial powers of the executive presidency would be trimmed. JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva at a press conference held in Colombo yesterday said that the JVP wanted the complete abolishment of the executive presidency, yet this is not possible at the present moment for the Government to carry out due to practical reasons. “We are in agreement concerning the amendments that have been gazetted. However we learned that after trimming powers from the executive presidency, the President will still possesscertain powers. Therefore we are of the opinion that those powers should only be restricted to the term time of current President Sirisena and that when he is leaving this post, the Constitution should be amended in a manner to cancel these powers,” Silva said. Commenting further, he criticised the conduct of Opposition Leader NimalSiripala and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), claiming that they only wanted to postpone the election to protect their majority in Parliament and protect politicians involved in corruption cases. “This Government cannot go forward without the help of the SLFP. Therefore it is not taking any action against corrupt SLFP members. This can only remain when the SLFP has the majority in Parliament. However, the excuses given by Nimal Siripala are unacceptable, especially concerning bringing in the constitutional amendments as an urgent bill, because when they brought in the 18th Amendmentwhich is a disastrous amendment, Nimal Siripala did not ask for time saying a debate should be created about it. Nimal Siriplala should be ashamed because these are selfish political reasons,” Silva said. The JVP General Secretary added that President Sirisena should dissolve Parliament and go for a general election after 23 April as it was promised by him in the run-up to the presidential election and seek a fresh mandate for Parliament. “The people have a right to appoint a Parliament they wish. Therefore, an election should be held. However, we accept that a new, proper, democratic, scientific and fair electoral system should be introduced. It should not be a system which satisfies the selfish political needs of certain people or a system which is advantageous to them. Nevertheless, during the presidential election the President said that the executive presidency should be abolished and no one spoke about the electoral system. Therefore the President should work towards abolishing the executive presidency completely,” he added.

Parliamentary debate on electoral reforms?