Northern polls should be held early - D.E.W. Gunasekara

by Uditha Kumarasinghe

Senior Minister for Human Resources D.E.W. Gunasekara said that Provincial Council elections in the Northern Province had been long delayed and should be held as early as possible.

Commenting on the controversial issue of police powers to the Provincial Councils, the Minister said police powers should not be given to the Chief Ministers of the North, East or any other province as they would abuse them. Police powers and other issues should be thrashed out separately.

Police powers have been on the statute book for 25 years. Until the other problems are sorted out, let it be in the statute book, the Minister told the Sunday Observer yesterday.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has proposed that a Parliamentary Select Committee be appointed to discuss these issues. The UNP has expressed its willingness to participate in the Select Committee. The TNA should also make its representations so that all political parties in Parliament, can sit together and decide on it.

This can not be tackled by the Government alone. All political parties should get together and solve this once and for all. History has shown us that a Government or single party alone cannot solve this problem, he said. The Minister said that people in the Northern province had been denied the benefits of development due to the terrorist war. Four years have elapsed since terrorism was defeated.

Therefore, elections should not be further delayed as this right is being enjoyed by people in the Southern, Western and other provinces since 1988. The other issues should be tackled separately, he said.