"Presidentship will be abolished"

[TamilNet, Sunday, 03 January 1999, 18:14 GMT]
The Sri Lankan President said that she will resolve the ethnic conflict and abolish the executive presidential system before the next elections by bringing about changes somehow to the country's constitution while addressing her first campaign meeting for the northwestern provincial council elections last night in the electorate of Yaapaahuwa, about 100 kilometers northeast of Colombo.

She accused the main opposition party, the United National Party (UNP) for not helping her government to work out a solution to the Tamil question and blamed the 1978 constitution for being the chief obstacle to peace.

The Sri Lankan President said the UNP constitution has to be done away with and claimed that no solution to ethnic conflict can be found as long as it is in force.

She told the people who had gathered for the election rally that she was eager to speak with them directly but that security consideration prevented her from doing it.

The President claimed that her security advisers were telling her not to mix freely among people, but that she will do so when the time comes.