Shares prospective way forward for new Parliament
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) Chairman Prof. G.L. Peiris yesterday (13) announced that the Government will not unnecessarily risk the health and wellbeing of the people of the country, and took a decision to halt all its public meetings that were organised for this week.
“The public meetings that were scheduled to take place with the participation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa between 13 and 15 July will be temporarily halted. Even during the previous rallies, we faced practical difficulties in controlling the crowd these rallies and meetings were attracting. People are highly enthused by the presence of the SLPP leaders and are participating in these rallies in scores,” he said.
Prof. Peiris elaborated that the general populace has an expectation that the next Parliament that would govern the country will ditch “salon door-type” politics and have a political house with an ironclad policy that will not push the ruling party to fetch a two-thirds majority to establish the next Parliament. He also noted that the candidates the SLPP has fielded for this election have the ability to secure the necessary votes to establish the next government without having to depend on the votes or seats that are won through political parties that have pledged to support the majority votes.
Sharing the party’s views on the upcoming elections, he noted: “We are confident that the people will vote in a strong ruling party, come 6 August. It is quite apparent that the majority votes will be cast in favour of an SLPP-led government. However, it is paramount that we establish a firm government that is able to take decisive decisions which would benefit the country and its citizens.”
Following the presidential election results of November 2019, many countries and organisations that were very critical about the Government of Sri Lanka have now realised that the outcome was purely based on the people’s mandate to appoint SLPP as the ruling party of Sri Lanka. Therefore, Prof. Peiris noted that the results of the general elections will surely be in favour of the SLPP after 6 August.
LTTE ban continues
The party has in the meantime got wind of external forces that are attempting to disrupt the way forward of the SLPP, and it was apparent by the incident which took place in Kilinochchi on 5 July during the Black Tiger Remembrance activity that resulted in an explosion.
“We have instructed international entities and governments that the ban on the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) organisation should continue to stay as there is potential for them to regroup. Any and all funding activities that are in support of the re-emergence of the LTTE should therefore be thwarted with immediate effect. The explosion and the Remembrance Day celebration that took place on 5 July are viewed as an act of defiance by the entities that are trying to arouse public fear,” Prof. Peiris explained.
The upcoming election will be a defining moment in Sri Lankan politics when the citizens of Sri Lanka elect the Ninth Parliament. Prof. Peiris agreed that the first order of business of the new Parliament that will be established on 6 August onwards will be preparing the Budget for the next year. He agreed that this should have ideally been done way before August.
Focus on Budget
“Overseeing a country’s affairs on a Vote on Account (VoA) for over eight months is not sustainable for the country’s economy. Large-scale investment opportunities, developing infrastructure, and managing the country’s capital finances cannot be attended to through a VoC. President Rajapaksa dissolved Parliament on 3 March and named the date to hold the election as 25 April and the first session of the Ninth Parliament was to be on 14 May. However, the pandemic derailed these plans.”
Once the date to convene the first session of the Ninth Parliament is announced, the new Government will have to look at drafting the Budget in which the first priority would be to grant concessions and loans at a 4% interest rate for entrepreneurs as well as to ensure there is a mechanism to monitor whether these concessions and loans are afforded to deserving persons. Prof. Peiris said that a sum of Rs. 1,060,000 will be allocated to improve and rebuild enterprises and that this would be the first programme that is to take flight once Parliament convenes.
“We will discuss the prospects of this programme and gather the opinion of the other political parties and implement a mechanism to provide the loans and concessions. Once the programme is underway, there will be a committee to oversee this programme to ensure that it reaches out to enterprises equally. It has been SLPPs tradition that when we draft plans for the development of communities and the country, there is a discourse on the matter.”
Prof. Peiris also said the new Parliament will conduct an in-depth analysis of the 17th and 19th Amendments to the Constitution to iron out the disputed areas.
