Conscious of strong opposition to its earlier decision on retaining the size of Parliament at 225 as part of the proposed 20th Constitutional Amendment, the Sri Lankan Cabinet on Friday decided to increase the number of Members of Parliament to 237. Of this figure, 145 members will be elected through the system of First Past The Post (FPTP) whereas the remaining 92 will be under proportional representation (PR). Within the tally of 92, the component of district PR will have 55 members and the national list will have 37.
Armed with the Cabinet’s approval, the government would notify the draft proposal in the gazette shortly to invite suggestions and comments from the public. Subsequently, the Parliament would take up the matter for consideration and adoption.
Parties representing upcountry Tamils or Indian Tamils including constituents of the newly-formed Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA) were particularly unhappy over the original decision taken on Monday and they had expressed their opposition in unequivocal terms. To thrash out the differences, the Cabinet held a special meeting on Friday morning.
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