Call for candidates of repute for 17 August general election

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Joint Business Chambers, OPA and Bar Association Executive Committee make united appeal to political parties to endorse March 12 declaration of PAFFREL and Citizens’ Collective

Sri Lanka’s Joint Business Chambers, the Organisation of Professional Associations (OPA), and the Executive Committee of the Bar Association in a statement said they would like to announce the endorsement of the ‘March 12th Declaration’ an initiative of PAFFREL and the ‘Citizens’ Collective’, which identifies a set of minimum criteria that the political parties should use, in selecting candidates for all future elections.

Accordingly, the Joint Business Chambers consisting of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka, National Chamber of Exporters, Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka, International Chamber of Commerce, Joint Apparel Association Forum, Ceylon National Chamber of Industries, Chamber of Young Lanka Entrepreneurs and the Executive Committee of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka, Organisation of Professional Associations of Sri Lanka and the Employers’ Federation of Ceylon has made a collective decision to back the ‘March 12th Declaration’.

The ‘March 12th Movement for Clean Politics’ (M12M) is planning to launch a series of nation-wide activities in the future, to bring about pressure on all political parties to refrain from nominating candidates of disrepute whilst also creating awareness amongst the public on the importance of electing politicians who have not involved in frauds, violent activities and crimes, etc. By adhering to these guidelines political parties will help towards creating and guaranteeing the most essential conducive environment for democracy, good governance, rule of law and transparency, to the legislature (the Parliament).

The first of such mass scale Island wide activity, aiming at collecting one million signatures from the public, urging the political parties to nominate “clean candidates” to contest in future elections is currently underway and is travelling across the island. It started on 25 June from the ‘Independence Square’. It will conclude on 6 July at a meeting at which the petition with signatures collected across the island would be handed over to the leaders of political parties. Simultaneously, an online signature campaign is also launched, and can be accessed through following link: https://www.change.org/p/calling-all-political-parties-in-sri-lanka-for-clean-politics-and-a-clean-parliament.