19A created chaos in the country: Dinesh

Leader of the House Dinesh Gunawardena charged that the previous government put the country into chaos through the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and stressed the need to have a complete change in the political mechanism.

He told Parliament that some of the features such as removing the powers vested in the President to dissolve Parliament, adding a clause that Parliament could not be dissolved until four and a half years of its term and the mysterious independent commissions created chaos in the country.

“The President was unable to dissolve parliament until March due to the clause in the 19th Amendment which said that Parliament could not be dissolved until four and a half years of its term had run. The powers vested both in the President and Parliament were removed by the previous government to put the country into disorder,” he said.

Minister Gunawardena said the President in his policy statement had assured that he would introduce a new electoral system and strengthen parliament.

He commented that when the country was handed over to the 'Good Governance Government' in 2015, the economic growth rate was 6.7 percent and when the country was handed back in 2020, economic growth rate was a mere two percent.  (Ajith Siriwardana and Yohan Perera)