To solve national question:

All parties should be stakeholders

by Uditha KUMARASINGHE

Foreign Employment and Welfare Minister Dilan Perera said that the proposed Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) is an ideal forum to propose the amendments to the Constitution to bring about a political solution to the national question since President Mahinda Rajapaksa has also said that he would agree to whatever the committee recommends.

Any solution to the national question should have all stakeholders in it. At times we may not be able to have one hundred percent stakeholders, but we must have as many stakeholders as possible and then only the concept of inclusivity becomes successful, the Minister told the Sunday Observer.

According to the Minister whatever the solution that originates from the PSC has to fine tune the 13th Amendment. All Parliamentarians have taken their oath under the present Constitution. Hence nobody can say we don’t want the 13th Amendment since it is also a part of the present Constitution.

The Minister said the Government should try to get the UNP, TNA and all parties involved themselves in the PSC to evolve a practical solution that goes beyond the 13th Amendment. Some people call it 13 Plus.

Minister Perera said it is now very easy for any Parliamentary Select Committee to have a timeframe because many things had been discussed at length at the Thimpu talks, Mangala Munasinghe talks and Prof.Tissa Vitharana’s APRC meetings.

Commenting on the JVP and UNP decision to boycott the proposed PSC, the Minister said that the JVP’s policy is always to boycott. I have never heard the JVP saying ‘yes’ as they always say ‘no’. I have also never seen the JVP being positive, they are always negative.

Therefore, I am not suprised at JVP, a party with a negative mindset, boycotting the proposed PSC.However, the UNP is a reputed political party which had ruled the country earlier and now heads the Parliamentary Opposition. At present, the UNP is divided into several factions.

The UNP which has decided to boycot the Parliamentary Select Committee will certainly end up in the political dustbin like the JVP. The UNP’s decision to boycot the PSC only shows that it does not have a proper policy towards the national question. The UNP should stop playing political football with the national question. They must be serious about it and work towards a political solution, the Minister said.

‘I am sure Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe will get all factions of his party together and use the proposed PSC to evolve a practical solution based on power-sharing to bring about a sustainable political solution to the national question, the Minister said.