‘Bounden duty to nominate members’:

Opposition’s participation in PSC talks vital – D.E.W. Gunasekara

by P. Krishnaswamy

Senior Minister of Human Resources D.E.W. Gunasekara who is among the 19 government members of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) told the Sunday Observer that it is important that all opposition political parties participate in the talks because it has been mandated to recommend political and constitutional measures to resolve problems.

In the absence of opposition parties it will be identified only as a “Government PSC” rather than an all-representative parliamentary body, he said.

The PSC has been vested with a mandate that is very significant in the country’s history and all political parties should consider it their bounden duty to nominate their members, he said.

Sri Lanka’s history, since independence, bears witness to the bitter truth that whenever earlier regimes presented proposals to resolve the problem they could not be implemented since opposition parties opposed them vehemently.

They opposed them not in the national interests but to gain political mileage, Gunaseka ra said, adding that this unfortunate situation should not continue.

As President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said the PSC will go by the report of the All Party Representative Committee (APRC) which held deliberations for nearly two years with the participation of many political parties.