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President Kumaratunga prorogued Parliament with the effect from midnight yesterday. Parliament will reconvene on September 7, 2001. The move followed an opposition attempt to wrest power from the ruling People’s Alliance whose numbers in Parliament have been reduced after the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress withdrew support after its leader, Rauf Hakeem was relieved of his Cabinet portfolios. The joint opposition yesterday handed in a petition signed by 115 legislators asking the Speaker to fix the debate on the no-confidence motion for July 18 with a vote on July 20. Opposition Leader, Ranil Wickremasinghe was not available for comment. V. Anandasangaree, Vice President of Sri Lanka’s main Tamil Party, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) was angry about the development. “I am very angry. It is an undemocratic attempt. Since we have 225 members in Parliament and 115 in the opposition, it is the duty of the head (of State) to leave the problem to be resolved in Parliament,” he said. “It is dictatorial. It is merely an attempt to evade the no-confidence motion,” he added. The Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in a statement charged that the President had used her wide powers to undemocratically retain the government’s power. The JVP statement added that the President seemed ready to push the country even towards a dictatorship. Sri Lanka’s constitution adopted by the United National Party government in 1978, vests the Executive President of the country with wide powers. Article 70 (1) of the constitution states, “The President may, from time to time, by Proclamation summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament.” The only condition for the prorogation of Parliament is in Article 70 (3), which states that, “A Proclamation proroguing Parliament shall fix a date for the next session, not being more than two months after the date of the Proclamation.” The government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga has sought to reduce the powers of the Executive Presidency through a draft constitution presented in Parliament last year. However, some political parties have opposed some of the provisions relating to the devolution of power incorporated to resolve the ethnic problem in the country and end the 18-year war with Tamil rebels in the north and east of Sri Lanka.
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