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Sri Lanka's main opposition is set to oppose a reported plan by Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga to hold a national referendum on the need to change the country's constitution.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, leader of the main opposition United National Party (UNP) told party gatherings Sunday in the northwestern Puttalam district that Kumaratunga's plan is a wasteful exercise which is going to cost the country a large amount of money.
Although there is no official statement on the president's intention, the political circles are abuzz with the plan.
Some analysts said Kumaratunga, who is on her second and final term, is keen to change the constitution so as to enable her to extend her political life. The present constitution bars her from contesting a third time.
Wickremesinghe, who has already been named as the UNP's presidential candidate, said that the only option before the president is to hold the presidential election without attempting to change the constitution.
Kumaratunga's camp says the president's plan is to subject the matter of a constitutional change at a referendum linked to the question of a federal solution to the country's long running ethnic conflict.
Wickremesinghe argues that a federal solution needs no referendum as almost all of the country's political parties are agreeable to the move.
Wickremesinghe as the prime minister entered the on-going cease-fire with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and held six rounds of direct negotiations with the rebels.
In November 2002 the rebels agreed to probe a federal solution as means to end the conflict.
However, a year later Kumaratunga fired Wickremesinghe's government, accusing him of conceding too much to the rebel group in the guise of the peace process.
Her party then trounced Wickremesinghe's party in the parliamentary election held in April last year.
Since then Kumaratunga has come under intense pressure from her main coalition partner, JVP or the People's Liberation Front not to further the peace agenda with the rebels.
(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2005)
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