Thursday, 26 March 2015 01:16
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By Chamodi Gunawardana
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) yesterday announced that they would be voting in favour of the 19th Amendment but would not join with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) or the United National Party (UNP) at the forthcoming general election.
JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva, addressing a media conference in Colombo, said that although they would be voting for the 19th Amendment they still believed that certain dictatorial powers of the executive president should be trimmed and that the 19th Amendment, which was presented in Parliament, was similar to the 18th Amendment.
“There is not much of a difference between these two amendments. We beli eve that the executive presidency should be abolished completely. Therefore we are only voting for the 19th Amendment because we think that the Government will trim more powers of the executive presidency in the future. However, we do not want to remove the powers of the executive presidency and give those powers to the Prime Minister either,” Silva said.
Commenting on the conduct of the SLFP and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), Silva mentioned that both these parties were trying to create problems at the general election.
“The SLFP hasn’t so far mentioned anything about the 19th Amendment. Nevertheless, Opposition Leader Nimal Siripala de Silva is making a huge noise to sabotage the next election, while Power and Energy Minister Champika Ranawaka has also joined him in this effort. However, we believe that Champika is only voting for even numbers. That’s why he didn’t vote for the 17th Amendment and now he is not going to vote for the 19th Amendment. He just wants to create a powerless President and that is why he is not voting,” he said.
Speaking about the cancellation of the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting which was scheduled to be held on Tuesday, Silva accused the Government of deliberately cancelling this meeting because it could not face the JVP’s questions. He emphasised that the JVP was only a part of the NEC and not a part of the Government.
Silva also compared the previous administration with the present administration and said that the current one was better for the people. He also said that this time the JVP would increase the number of its candidates contesting the general election.
“However, as a political party we will compete alone at the general election as we have no desire to get together with the SLFP, UNP or any other political party,” he explained.
