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| Wednesday, 21 April 2004 |
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Politics | |
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| JHU will consider accepting post of Speaker By Chamikara Weerasinghe The six member Supreme Sangha Council of Jathika Hela Urumaya yesterday said they will consider accepting the post of Speaker if the United People's Freedom Alliance Government and the United National Front Opposition unitedly offerred it. The members of the Supreme Council addressing a press conference at the Asapuwa at Sulaiman Terrace in Colombo said, "We are not all that interested in taking the post of Speaker as some newspapers have mistakenly highlighted, since our main concern is how to act in order to address the country's burning issues." The Media Spokesman for the Supreme Sangha Council, Ven. Athuraliye Rathana thera admitted that both the government and the Opposition had requested their support for their respective nominees for the post of Speaker. "The UNF said their nominee would be Badulla District MP W. J. M. Lokubandara, and the Alliance Government said their nominee would be D. E. W. Gunasekera for the Speaker's post. But they did not give any confirmation about the names nor did they give any idea what they would do after taking up this post," he said. Explaining the stand taken by them regarding the matter, Ven. Athuraliye Rathana thera said they felt it was necessary to apprise the nation about the importance of the Speaker's post at this juncture in the backdrop of things now in place to form a Constituent Assembly to ammend the Constitution. He pointed out since the post of Speaker would be vested with specific powers to appoint the Council and approve its decisions, it would be significant at this juncture to consider the offer. "The Speaker will have decisive powers to decide whether the amendments to the Constitution stipulated by the Assembly should be presented before the public, or at a referendum," he said. Ven. Rathana thera pointed out that the JHU would not support any Constitutional amendments formulated to achieve personal gains . " If amendments are made in the larger interests of the people and the nation, the JHU would certainly consider and study them," he added. He recalled that the 1972 Republican Constitution was enacted and promulgated by the then United Front government with the support of the United National Party, and he stressed the need for such a consensus if the present Constitution was to be changed in the interest of the people and the nation. |
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