Executive Presidency must go says TNA… minorities no longer believe in it
by Zacki Jabbar-June 8, 2013
The Executive Presidency should be abolished as the minorities no longer have any faith in it, the Tamil National Alliance(TNA) said yesterday.
Asked, about the TNA’s position on the Executive Presidency in the light of the UNP releasing its new draft constitution which calls for its repeal, the TNA leader Rajavarothiam Sampanthan said "it has to go" adding that it was no longer a "shelter" for the minority communities that it was intended to be when the 1978 Constitution was introduced.
The unprecedented manner in which executive powers have been abused by President Mahinda Rajapaksa has convinced the minorities that a Head of State answerable to Parliament was the best option, he pointed out.
Sampanthan said that the TNA was committed to an undivided country consisting of an heterogenous and not homogeneous society where people of different cultures contributed to a Sri Lankan nation.
Pointing out that President Mahinda Rajapaksa was engaged in speeches full of empty promises and rhetoric, he observed that there has been a reluctance on the part of his ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance to use the post war opportunity to move forward by creating a society in which all its citizens had a sense of belonging.
The TNA leader cautioned that moves to dilute the 13th Amendment to the Constitution by stripping provincial administrations of land and police powers would negate the very essence of devolution and therefore be counterproductive.
Dismissing fears that a Northern Provincial Council under a Tamil leadership would lead to the division of the country, he noted that such a belief existed only in the minds of the Jathika Hela Urumaya and the National Freedom Front and not among the vast majority of the Sinhala people.
It’s a fanciful notion that devolution would lead to separation. Such a fear was not expressed when the LTTE was in existence. In fact more powers than in the 13th Amendment was offered to the North and East at that time, Sampanthan said.
