Govt.’s move to abolish 13 A a naïve move, claims UNP
The main opposition UNP yesterday charged that the government was planning to abolish the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in a bid to avoid holding the Northern Provincial Council election as it knew it could not win it.
UNP Senior Vice President and Parliamentarian Lakshman Kiriella told a news conference that the government wanted to refrain from holding the Northern Provincial Council election as the people in the North would not vote in its favour.
Mr. Kiriella said the government was trying to provoke communalism among the people as it had run out of slogans given the bankrupt status of the economy and its inability to bring about reconciliation in the North and East after the war. He said the government had failed to end disappearances, suicides and unemployment.
The UNP also recalled that it was the government which had given assurances to the international community that power would be devolved on the basis of the 13th Amendment. He said such an assurance was given just after the war when a resolution was brought against Sri Lanka at the UNHRC, while assurances were given to UN Chief Ban Ki Moon when he visited Sri Lanka and when the Indian Foreign Secretary S. M. Krishna visited Sri Lanka. Mr. Kiriella therefore said the
It was the government which had given assurances to the international community that power would be devolved on the basis of the 13th Amendment.
joint statement issued by President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Mr. Moon as well as the the joint statement issued by Mr. Krishna and Minister of External Affairs G. L. Peiris assured that a political solution would be worked out to the national issue based on the 13th Amendment.