{"id":84124,"date":"2018-12-13T14:44:31","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T21:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=84124"},"modified":"2018-12-13T14:44:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T21:44:31","slug":"hold-a-referendum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/12\/13\/hold-a-referendum\/","title":{"rendered":"Hold a Referendum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr P.A.Samaraweera<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The Supreme Court has ruled that the President’s decision to dissolve Parliament was unconstitutional. The verdict was also that if he wants to dissolve Parliament before four and a half years,\u00a0there must be a resolution passed by two thirds majority in Parliament.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now that the Supreme Court has given a decision, it is best that the President goes for a Referendum to hold a general election.\u00a0Referendums are not new in Sri Lanka. In Dec 22nd 1982 , President JR held a Referendum to extend the life of Parliament by 6 years. The life of the then Parliament was to expire in August ’83. So he went for a Referendum as he feared he would lose the two third majority he had in Parliament. Dr Gunadasa Amarasekara, Convenor of the Federation of National Organisations, as well called on the President to hold a Referendum for a general election,\u00a0in case the Supreme Court rules against the dissolution of Parliament.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the constitution, the President has the power to call for a Referendum on matters of national importance. Thus public opinion can be tested by a Referendum. Recently, the UK held a Referendum with regard to Brexit. A Referendum would be the best, as President Sirisena and PM Mahinda Rajapakse are in favour of a general election, while the UNP, TNA and the JVP are hesitant and scared\u00a0of an election. As it is, the general feeling is that the people are for a general election as they are fed up with Ranil and his cohorts. This group is\u00a0working on a western agenda backed by the TNA and separatists.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr P.A.Samaraweera The Supreme Court has ruled that the President’s decision to dissolve Parliament was unconstitutional. The verdict was also that if he wants to dissolve Parliament before four and a half years,\u00a0there must be a resolution passed by two thirds majority in Parliament. Now that the Supreme Court has given a decision, it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drpasamaraweera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}