'Elections commissioner acted according to the law'- MNA

COLOMBO: Reacting to media reports criticising Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake for the rejection of the United National Party's (UNP) Colombo nomination list for the recently concluded Local Government elections, Secretary General of the Muslim National Alliance (MNA) Nazeer Ahamed said that he believed the Commissioner has acted according to the law and as such could not be faulted.

'The UNP must realise that the Commissioner was acting according to the law enacted by Parliament which is the supreme legislature in the country'.

He went on to say that he thought it was ironic that someone should be faulted for acting according to the law by the very people who drafted that law and put it into force.

'In this backdrop I am happy to congratulate Dayananda Dissanayake for handling the Local Government elections in a manner that upheld the time honoured traditions of his department' said Ahamed, 'this is something that the Commissioner has strictly adhered to since he took office'.

Nazeer Ahamed also stressed the importance of the electoral reforms which have been in the pipeline for a long time.

He added that Parliament should act fast to change the electoral laws. 'This way we could avoid all the unpleasantness that has cropped up because of deficiencies in the Electoral Law'.