By Shamindra Ferdinando
With the presidential election scheduled for later this year, political parties represented in Parliament have stepped up efforts to forge alliances.
In terms of the Constitution, presidential elections will have to be conducted between Sept 18 and Oct 18, 2024. The last presidential election was held in Nov 2019.
Even though the presidential election is scheduled for this year, the possibility of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the UNP leader, advancing the parliamentary poll, cannot be ruled out. The last parliamentary poll was held in Aug 2020. Both presidential and parliamentary terms are for five years each.
Whatever the national election that will be held first, under Wickemesinghe’s watch, one of the key factors is the role the armed forces and their families might play in exercising their universal franchise in the current charged up atmosphere of some retired military types calling for a “pivotal change” in the country, from JVP/JJB stages, for the first time. But it was not so long ago the same JVP, in battling the newly elected President Premadasa, made the fatal mistake of giving an ultimatum, in early 1989, to the fighting men, to choose between them and what the latter stood for and we all know what the outcome was with unprecedented brutal violence resorted to by both sides. The then entire JVP leadership was wiped out by the end of that year, barring its politburo member Somawansa Amerasinghe, who managed to flee to India in the nick of time. He later returned to lead the revived party during President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s tenure. Until its young Turks ousted him and he then went the way of all living beings, as age caught up with him, having been a member of the old guard.
The old knight …read more
Source:: The Island