News
Move to increase women representation in parliament
28 May, 2015
The Government today said that it had proposed to increase the number of seats in parliament in order to have more minority and women representation.
Cabinet Spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne said?that the proposal had been put forward as part of the 20th amendment to the constitution by President Maithripala Sirisena in a weekly cabinet meeting.
Further deliberations on the matter will be done at a meeting next week before it is presented to Parliament, Senaratne added.
?There are 15 items suggested in the 20th amendment to the constitution and the main item includes to increase the number of seats in parliament from 225 to 255. This was not proposed by any request from any political party but to accommodate more minority parties and the small parties in parliament,? he said.
Senaratne further said that the government hopes to allow more women to be elected to parliament by increasing nominations. The latest set of election reforms also wants to encourage political parties to appoint women to bonus seats in parliament.
The United National Party recently said that all major political parties in the island country have to commit that 50 percent of parliamentarians selected under the National List be women. (Colombo Gazette)
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