8.9.2008
Sunil C. Perera in Colombo

The United National Party is planning to commence a broad political coalition to combat the various misdeeds of the government and to force it to implement the17th Amendment.

General Secretary of the UNP Tissa Attanayake said that it was time to take suitable action.

“It’s important to get together and fight as one alliance against the government before it destroys the country,” Attanayake said.

He further pointed out that non implementation of the 17th Amendment had done great harm to democracy in this country since it had allowed the President and several Cabinet members to do whatever they pleased.

“The fact that the 17th Amendment was not implemented has affected every election held under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s regime. Not only were the people unable to vote freely and fairly, the Police was unable to exercise the law because of the unnecessary influence of the government,” he said.

Replying media he said a special meeting of the UNP Working Committee has been fixed for Thursday, September 11 to discuss party reforms.

The Working Committee which met the previous week decided to meet before September 15 to finalise the party reforms as called for by a group of MPs including Johnston Fernando, Lakshman Seneviratne, Jayalath Jayawardena, Indika Bandaranayake and Talata Athukorale.

Meanwhile party sources said the UNP is a democratic party and in keeping with the majority view the necessary changes will be made. One of the key proposals made by the Reformist Group is to appoint a deputy leader and three assistant leaders.

He also showed grave concern over the indiscriminate massive short term borrowings of the Government at exorbitant interest rates in its desperation to cover up its bankruptcy and debt repayments with no development programs or progress in sight. Already, U.S. $. 230 million has been borrowed by the Government and another U.S. $ 70 million is in the pipeline.

These loans, to mention just a few are taken over and above those mentioned and passed in the last Budget. Besides, no mandatory Parliamentary approvals have been obtained in this respect.