In the lead up to the proposed Northern Provincial Council (NPC) election in September Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP, Mathiaparanan Abraham Sumanthiran, has expressed the belief that the government is not genuinely committed to the process of reconciliation.
pic courtesy of: Knowledge Box

In a wide ranging interview with Ceylon Today, he explained why he is doubtful the election would be held as announced and why change has to happen from within. He also said hosting the CHOGM will undermine the values of the Commonwealth.

More than a month after Fashion Bug, a popular clothes store in the Sri Lankan capital, was vandalised, business is back to normal. Shoppers cram into the Muslim-owned store as the Buddhist holiday season for Vesak (in India, Buddha Purnima) begins this month-end.

Six weeks ago, a mob had broken into the chain store’s main warehouse in a suburb of Colombo. Television footage showed the mob cheering as a Buddhist monk flung a stone at a window of the warehouse. The attack left many injured and the warehouse’s inventory ravaged.

UNP Economic Spokesman Dr. Harsha De Silva MP has questioned the government’s rational for importing a fleet of Rolls Royce Ghost cars for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November this year, after a similar car was under invoiced and brought into the country with the Treasury yet to look in to the matter.

Executive Director of CaFFE Keerthi Tennakoon, addressing a workshop titled ‘Let’s build civil society solidarity’, held at Kithulkanda Mountain Resort, last Sunday, said that an extremely weak opposition could mediate in people’s problems. As the opposition failed to form a people’s protest against the increased electricity bill, now the electricity bill protest movement was centrally focused by the trade unions and civil society organisations.

Tennakoon said that there were some government coalition members who already had shown their opposition to the up coming PC elections in the North. If the alternative government of a country was its opposition, the opposition should have the courage to fight for the democratic rights of the people. The need for an opposition was not only to represent in elections but to intervene and resolve day-to-day problems of the people relating to such areas as health, education and highways.

Sources close to the government informed that elections to the Central and Wayamba provincial councils are likely to be postponed.

The government is planning to hold the Northern Provincial Council elections in early September and to conduct the polls for the Central and Wayamba Provincial councils later in the same month.

Former Norwegian peace envoy to Sri Lanka Erik Solheim has met some Tamil parties and discussed the Sri Lankan situation.

Solheim tweeted today saying that the Tamil parties had told him there was a need for international observers to monitor the northern provincial council elections scheduled for November.

A former Minister of Environment and International Development in Norway, Solheim is now the Chair of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC).

The US Ambassador to Colombo Michele J. Sison has had discussions with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) regarding the scheduled elections in the north.

According to the Jaffna based Uthayan newspaper, the Ambassador had also discussed the land acquisition issue in Jaffna and the current political situation in Sri Lanka.

TNA leader R. Sampanthan and TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran had attended the discussion with the US envoy held in Colombo, the newspaper said.

The Central Committee of Jathika Hela Urumaya has decided to present a proposal to Parliament to abolish the Provincial Council. system.

It would be presented as a personal proposal of a Member of Parliament next week to the Parliament by the Jathika Hela Urumaya.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has decided to refrain from contesting the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) elections, unless land grabbing in the North is halted, Leader of the Democratic People’s Front (DPF), Mano Ganesan, said addressing the media yesterday.

A spokesman or representative from the TNA was not present to make their stance known and therefore, Ganesan articulated the TNA position to the press.

The ceremonial sitting to welcome the newly appointed Supreme Court judge, Justice Rohini Marasinghe was held at the Supreme Court yesterday with the notable absence of the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL), which traditionally represents the country’s legal fraternity.

Justice Marasinghe was accorded a warm welcome at the ceremonial sitting by an array of Judges of the Supreme Court (SC), Court of Appeal, High Court, District Court and the Magistrate’s Court.