The Lanka Sama Samaja Party recognizes that the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna played a decisive role in defeating the conspiracy of the UNP to substitute itself as the virtual government of this country. The JVP leadership should be congratulated on its last minute pull out from the spurious "Save Democracy" campaign mounted against the PA Government by the forces of comprador capitalism.

Credit is due to the President for having resisted the attempts of rightist forces within her own party to install an SLFP-UNP government in a situation in which neither the SLFP nor the PA had a mandate to form a government with the UNP. The President protected courageously the mandate given to her by the people.

The Lanka Sama Samaja Party must itself take credit for being able to fearlessly expose to the country the utterly reactionary nature of the demand for a so-called "National Government". The LSSP took this position in the face of the powerful media build-up behind the comprador pressure exerted on all parties for the formation of a national government as a way out of the parliamentary crisis. The UNP’s demands put up at the UNP-SLFP talks proved the correctness of the LSSP’s positions. "National Government" was the cover for the UNP to establish its own government despite it having been rejected repeatedly by the people.

The JVP’s intervention helped save the situation. It was decisive in nature and significant in impact. In the assistance the JVP has made available to the PA it has made a definite choice as between the UNP and the PA. It was compelled by the logic of its own politics to make the choice. It is also an admission that the PA is a political formation with progressive potential. It is for the PA to prove its progressive nature and maintain the support that is extended by the JVP.

The LSSP endorses the agreement between the PA and the JVP. The agreement promotes good governance and makes the PA recommit itself to its vision made known to the people in 1994. It gives to the PA the strength and stability to take the needed measures to win the confidence of the minorities as a first step to solving the ethnic problem. It provides the opportunity for the speedy adoption of the measures contained in the PA’s Constitutional Amendment presented to parliament in August 2000. These measures relate to structural changes as would ensure genuine independence to the Judicial Service Commission, the Public Service Commission and the Elections Commission. The Police Commission ensures to parliament its right to have the police service made accountable to it.

The country will accept these measures as progressive. So is the agreement’s commitment to have the Executive Presidential system abolished expeditiously. The replacement of the prevailing electoral system by one that is more representative is also a matter agreed to.

The PA is a minority government in parliament. To maintian itself it will need the co-operation of parties and groupings in the opposition. It has taken the first step in winning the support of the JVP, from the opposition, for an agreed programme of work. To carry out the needed constitutional reform mentioned in the PA-JVP agreement there will be the need for agreement with almost the whole of the opposition. The LSSP sees this as the need for national consensus. This relates not only to our political problems but also, and even more particularly, to the economic problems to which we are subject in the circumstances of a globalized open economy. The LSSP is confident that the country is equal to this task. The PA-JVP agreement has to be viewed in this context.