Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) yesterday said it decided to stop all public agitations against the proposed 20th Amendment due to the latest outbreak of COVID-19, its National List MP Eran Wickramaratne said yesterday.

Mr. Wickramaratne said the party would carry out its campaign against this piece of legislation via social media and the mainstream media. “We have cancelled the programmes planned earlier against the 20th Amendment and decided to confine our agitation campaign only to the platforms of social and mainstream media,” he said.

The MP said his party is not against the Executive Presidency as long as long as there are checks on it to ensure democracy. “We are against the repealing of the section in the 19th Amendment which provided for anyone to file fundamental rights applications against the President. SJB is also against the reducing of powers of the Auditor General where the Auditor General will not be able to carry out audits on 100 state-owned institutions under the 20th Amendment. It is important that the Auditor General is able to carry out audits on institutions such as SriLankan Airlines,” the MP said.

Besides he said Sri Lanka should make a note of the fate of countries such as Iran and Iraq which having been having a system based on Executive Presidency. (Yohan Perera)