UPFA ministers oppose moves to dilute 13A

Tuesday, 25 June 2013 09:46 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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Divisions within the ruling UPFA coalition on the issue of diluting the 13th Amendment to the Constitution were laid bare yesterday when a group of senior Government Ministers publicly proclaimed their opposition to the move and vowed to defeat moves to reduce the powers of the provincial councils. “The Government will not receive a two thirds majority in Parliament for a revision of the provincial council system through a constitutional amendment,” Fisheries Minister Rajitha Senaratne told a news conference yesterday. Minister Senaratne was joined by his ministerial colleagues Prof. Tissa Vitharana, Vasudeva Nanayakkara, D.E.W. Gunesekera and Reginald Cooray in a rare public display of dissent within the ruling coalition at a press conference at the Lanka Sama Samaja Party Headquarters. The Ministers said that there was a silent majority within the Government to defeat moves to dilute the powers of the provincial councils. Senior Minister Prof. Vitharana said that the group that had gathered under the banner ‘Let’s build a united Lankan nationality’ would not support any moves to dilute the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. “In fact the 13th Amendment and provincial council powers should be strengthened further and not reduced,” he said. Former Constitutional Affairs Minister D.E.W. Gunesekera told the media briefing that the country’s ethnic conflict should not be used by politicians to gain political mileage again. He warned against the dangers of irking India over the moves to dilute the provisions of 13A that governed the provincial council system set up under the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987.

Gunasekara said that a common consensus should be achieved by the country’s two main political parties – the SLFP and the UNP to arrive at a permanent solution to the national problem. He said there was a need to decentralise power to make democracy more meaningful. Minister Senaratne said that if the Parliamentary Select Committee set up to advice on Constitutional reform recommends the dilution of the 13th Amendment, they would question the Committee on what threat the amendment truly posed. Minister Vasudeva Nanayakkara told the press briefing that the people of the north should be given the opportunity to elect their public representatives freely. “President Mahinda Rajapaksa told the cabinet once that there was no point even paving the roads in the north in gold if you don’t give them the right to elect their representatives,” Nanayakkara recalled. Minister Nanayakkara said they stood for an unitary state including the provincial council system. “The JHU and the National Freedom Front were attempting to dilute the 13A because the two parties could never contest elections in the north. “Why can’t they? That is because they pursue a Sinhala only ideology,” Nanayakkara said. The Minister said that the solution of these two parties according to their political ideology was to prevent the northern election. “Their path to unifying Sri Lanka is to keep the north permanently under the rule of the Sinhala administration. That is why they want a military officer as a Governor of that province. They want a military administered north,” Minister Nanayakkara charged. Minister Reginald Cooray said the SLFP does not approve the proposal to revise the 13th Amendment. Communist Party Member Minister Chandrasri Gajadeera and Secretary of the Socialist United Front Raja Kollure also attended the meeting. Government constituent ally, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress who has eight seats in Parliament, has also expressed its opposition to moves to dilute the 13th Amendment. In the face of mounting pressure domestically and from New Delhi about attempts to scuttle post-war devolution, the Government has decided to amend the 13th Amendment to the Constitution ahead of the northern provincial council election. (DB)