National Freedom Front (NFF) leader Wimal Weerawansa, MP on Monday (Oct 9) alleged that the JVP’s demand for abolishing the executive presidency was a ruse to facilitate an anti-Mahinda Rajapaksa alliance with the UNP.

Joining President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a live political programme telecast over state and private television networks, the MP said there was an attempt to bring the UNP, JVP and the likes of Mano Ganeshan, MP and R. Sampanthan, MP under one umbrella. He asserted that the so-called common front represented anti-nationalist forces bent on destabilising the country.

The constituents of the proposed alliance had sided with the LTTE during the Eelam war IV but failed to save the LTTE, Weerawasnsa said. As at the last presidential election in November, 2005, the country had been divided into two groups, patriots and those contracted by the international community to destabilise the country for the benefit of the separatists, he said.

The JVP had now joined the second group and was using the so-called demand for the abolition of executive presidency to cover up their true intentions.The former JVP heavyweight said that during the tenure of the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the JVP had forced her to exercise executive powers to thwart Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s plans. Had she been reluctant to take over several key ministerial portfolios, dissolve parliament and call early parliamentary polls, the situation would have been different today, he said.

Unlike his predecessors, President Rajapaksa had used executive powers to destroy the LTTE. He said that the LTTE’s military challenge could not have been met without executive powers which strengthened the President’s hands at one of the most difficult periods of Sri Lanka’s contemporary history.

For anyone wanting to see an end to the executive presidency, the best choice at a presidential election would be the incumbent President, he said.

Weerawansa said the President would do away with executive powers if he felt such powers were no longer required.

Chief Government Whip, Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said that in the unlikely event of an Opposition victory at presidential election, they could not be unaware that executive presidency could be scrapped only with a two-third majority in Parliament.