Amendments to LG Act before Parliament on October 6 
 
<P>[September 26 2010]

<P>The amendments to the Local Government Act would be presented in Parliament early next week. It would be a mixed system of the existing preferential voting system and the old system which existed before the 1978 Constitution. 

<P>Highly-placed Government sources told the Observer Online a short while ago that the draft bill for amendment of local government elections that would introduce the ‘first-past-the-post electoral system’ to conduct elections for Local Government bodies will be tabled in Parliament on October 6. 

<P>Accordingly, amendments to the Municipal Council Ordinance, Urban Council Ordinance and the Pradeshiya Sabha Act, will also be presented at the legislature. It is expected to be [assed as an urgent bill. The UNP has expressed consent to some of the amendments while making some of their own proposals as well. 

<P>Under the new amendments proposed, two-thirds of the members are to be elected on the first-past-the-post system and one-third under the PR system.