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Special Cabinet session on 19th Amendment

The political tussle over the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which seeks to curb the power of the President to dissolve Parliament comes to a head today when the Cabinet meets to ratify the proposal at a special meeting.

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga is due to express her views on the proposal at the meeting. Ministers who were overseas have been summoned back to Colombo to attend the all-important discussion.

Last Wednesday, the Cabinet decided to gazette the Amendment today so that it could be presented in Parliament on September 11.

Meanwhile the Opposition People's Alliance is yet to arrive at a final decision over its stand on the amendment, partymen told the Daily News yesterday. Leader of the Opposition Mahinda Rajapakse told the Daily News that no final decision was reached on the matter but the PA had decided to suggest an amendment when the Bill is presented before Parliament seeking certain modifications.

"At the moment, a committee of the PA is working out the details of this amendment. Other than that I cannot comment further," Rajapakse said.

The Daily News learns that although Rajapakse and several other prominent PA members including former Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremenayake were summoned by the President for crisis talks to work out a party position yesterday, the latter had failed to turn up at the meeting. Meanwhile, PA sources said their party was prepared to support the proposed Amendment on the basis of the President's recent letter to the Speaker where she gave an undertaking not to dissolve Parliament unless the party which presently commands the confidence of the House loses its majority and an alternative Government cannot be formed from its present members.

This decision was reached at the PA's Central Committee meeting, proposed by Lakshman Kadirgamar and seconded by Anura Bandaranaike.

A prominent PA MP meanwhile told the Daily News that pressure was being mounted among certain MPs to reach a compromise with the Government over this matter over-riding the stance of the hardliners who do not wish to cut a deal with the Government. The President has the power to dismiss Parliament one year after the date of elections. One of the compromise proposals discussed by some PA leaders was that they would support the amendment extending this period up to two years.

The government had earlier argued that it needed a guarantee that Parliament would not be dissolved before it entered into peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to seek a lasting solution to the national question. In her letter to the Speaker of Parliament, the President had said that she would not dissolve Parliament at the moment. Government spokesmen have rejected this promise and sought changes in the basic law to concretize the matter.

Cabinet Spokesman Prof. G.L. Peiris said that the Amendment was required to provide a minimum of political stability to the current Parliament so that the government could go to the talks without having a Sword of Damocles hanging over it.

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