Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="ibnanv" data-source="post: 17725394" data-attributes="member: 218596">Sirisena wants to establish  independent commissions to run the police, the public service and the  judiciary and transfer much of his executive powers to parliament.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Colombo — Sri Lanka’s newly-elected  president has engineered enough defections from his predecessor’s party  to secure a parliamentary majority essential for radical constitutional  reforms, officials said Sunday. Maithripala Sirisena has already received the backing of more than 40  lawmakers who were previously loyal to Mahinda Rajapakse, whom he  unseated in Thursday’s presidential election, spokesman Rajitha  Senaratne said. “We now have more than we need in parliament,” Senaratne told AFP. “We can have our legislative programme approved without any difficulty whatsoever.” Sirisena, who is to address the nation later Sunday from the historic  hill city of Kandy, previously had the backing of 89 lawmakers and  needed another 24 to secure a simple majority in the 225-member house. The new leader, who is himself a defector from Rajapakse’s party, has  already pledged to reverse many of the constitutional changes brought  in by his predecessor which gave huge powers to the president. Sirisena wants to establish independent commissions to run the  police, the public service and the judiciary and transfer much of his  executive powers to parliament. Even Rajapakse’s Sri Lankan Freedom Party has said it will support  Sirisena’s constitutional reforms, making their enactment a formality. Sirisena quit Rajapakse’s cabinet in November to emerge as an  opposition unity candidate in the January 8 polls, triggering the  biggest defection of lawmakers from a government since independence from  Britain in 1948. In his speech in Kandy, Sirisena is expected to spell out his reform  plan in detail and call for a normalising of relations with the European  Union as well as other Western nations and neighbouring India. Rajapakse had alienated many of his fellow leaders by refusing to  allow an international probe into allegations of mass civilian  casualties in the brutal finale to Sri Lanka’s 37-year Tamil separatist  war in 2009.</blockquote>

Verification: Haya warak paha keeyada? (haya wadi kireema paha)

Top Bottom