Gazette notification on 20A to be released today

12 June 2015 02:00 am

The gazette notification on the 20th Amendment to the Constitution is expected to be released tonight after the special cabinet meeting today finalizes the draft electoral reforms, Cabinet Spokesman, Health Minister Dr. Rajitha Senaratne said yesterday.

Addressing the weekly cabinet news briefing, he said the new Parliament to be formed will comprise of 200 elected members including that from multi seat constituencies and another 25 from the National List and added there will not be a dissolution of Parliament until the 20A was passed in Parliament. .

However, the problem is that many political parties including the minority parties are not in agreement with UNP's proposal to reduce the number of constituencies to 125. We can sort out all these issues and the the composition of the Parliament under the new electoral system when we discuss the Bill at the committee stage,' Minister Senaratne added.

The Minister said the government expected to activate all independent commissions and the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruptions in particular as soon as possible now that the cabinet has given the nod to constitute the Constitutional Council (CC) with already nominated members comprising seven. The other three members that have to be nominated by civil society for the 10 member CC would be nominated after the new government was elected, he said .

Commenting on the No Confidence Motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, he said both would not be taken up for debate during the term of this Parliament.

President Maithripala Sirisena has never supported or opposed the two no confidence motions but has told the opposition to choose between the no confidence motions or the 20th Amendment to the Constitution and added that it was unlikely that the no confidence motion against Mr. Karunanayake would be successful as many of the signatories to the motion were ready to withdraw their signatures.

Commenting on the candidates who had applied to contest the general election under the UPFA flag, Minister Senaratne said former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had not sent an application but his son Namal had sent one and he would get a nomination. (Sandun A Jayasekera)