11 January 2023 06:12 am Views - 1573
It was a direct violation of the Constitution by the President to take a Cabinet decision to halt accepting deposits for the Local Government elections, National People's Power (NPP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said yesterday.
He said making a special statement that the Cabinet has exceeded its powers making directions to halt accepting deposits.
He said a Cabinet decision has been taken to the effect that there was a rift within the elections commission and that opinion of the Attorney General should be sought and accepting deposits should be halted until then.
Dissanayake said it was a bold decision of the Elections Commission to state that the Cabinet has violated the Constitution and they would continue accepting deposits.
He said having failed in all their attempts to postpone Local Government elections, the government is now trying to do so by creating a rift between the President and the Election Commission.
"The government used various tactics to postpone LG polls. Its attempts to do so through Parliament was foiled.The influence on the elections commission by calling it to Presidential Secretariat failed either. We hope the Judiciary will also give a fair ruling on the matter," he said.
MP Dissanayake said the NPP would place deposits tomorrow for certain districts as planned previously. (Ajith Siriwardana)