Kiriella: UNP trusts Parliament to be dissolved after 20A

6 May 2015 02:28 pm

The United National Party (UNP) believed that the Parliament would be dissolved at the end of this month following the enactment of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, Chief Government Whip Lakshman Kiriella said today.

Kiriella told a media briefing that Parliament should be dissolved now as its term was over. He said there should be a new Parliament when a new President was elected.

"Oil in Parliament machinery should be changed at least once in five years and it is time to do it now," the minister said.

Referring to former UNP General Secretary Tissa Attanayake, the minister said neither he nor others had any issue with Attanayake.

He said it was Attanayake who went against the Party leader and the common opposition candidate at the last Presidential Election.

Responding to a question as to why the UNP could not follow the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which offered leadership to its former General Secretary, who defected and became the Opposition candidate and gave him a place in the party, the minister said one was recognised in politics only when he or she emerged as a winner. Mr Attanayake backed the losing candidate at the election," he said.

Speaking on his Ministry’s work he said the programmes of securing stable prices for tea and rubber, providing land for estate sector workers and minimising inferior quality fertiliser had been done successfully.(Yohan Perera)