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by Rodney Martinesz and Jayantha Sri Nissanka

The JVP's major policy turn-around where the party is now advocating the preservation of the Executive Presidency has drawn wry comments from the Government and Opposition Political Parties.

JVP Parliamentary Group Leader Wimal Weerawansa in his speech during the Defence Vote last Thursday called for the Presidency and the Office of the Prime Minister retained by different political parties to ensure no arbitrary decisions is taken by either of the two that would harm the sovereignty of the country.

He appealed to the SLFP Opposition not to compromise the Presidency by throwing in their lot with the Government. There has to be two power centres if the country is to remain intact, Weerawansa said.

Responding to the JVP member's comment Minister of Human Resources Development, Education and Cultural Affairs Dr. Karunasena Kodituwakku said that he was not surprised at the new stance taken by the JVP which at one stage even went to the extent of withdrawing its own Presidential Candidate from the race on the undertaking the Executive Presidency would be abolished. The JVP's power base is fast eroding.

The Party which secured 15,000 votes at the last General Election in Kaduwela was reduced to a mere 8,000 votes at the Local poll, the Minister said adding that the JVP was anxious to preserve the present status-quo so that one day they could enter into another "Pariwase" with the President and protect their Parliamentary seats.

TULF MP V. Anandasangari said that the JVP should realise that the President has lost all legitimacy of her mandate with the resounding victories scored by the UNP at the elections and there is no question of the President clinging to her mandate any more. Members of the left Political Parties maintain that they were not surprised at the shift in policy of the JVP which had a history of such betrayals of the masses.

LSSP General Secretary Batty Weerakoon asked what the JVP was preaching all these years where it held the Executive Presidency as the fount of all evil."

We of the LSSP never compromised our stand on the fact that the Executive Presidency should go". New Left Front leader Dr. Wickremebahu Karunaratne said that he even went to jail fighting for the abolishment of the Executive Presidency which is the root cause of all the present day problems. "The JVP should hide their faces in shame".

General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Communist Party Dew Gunasekara voicing the sentiments of his left party colleagues said that the Executive Presidency had brought much misery to the people and trampled on their democratic rights.

The CP will never be a party that would support the retention of the Executive Presidency.

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