Women Meet with the Chief Minister for Eastern Province
A Team from the Campaign for Political Representation for women met with the Chief Minister for Eastern Province Mr. Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan (or Mr. Pillayan as he is popularly known) on September 28
Women's campaign meets CM Pillayan
th, 2009, to seek his support for (a) the proposed bill to amend local government elections and (b) a quota for women in the proposed bill.
The team was led by led by Ari Galapaththy, Member of the Eastern Provincial Council. Mrs. Galappaththy was joined by Anuruddhika Dissanayake, a councilor from Anuradhapura Urban Council , Hemanthi Gunasekera and Sujata Gamage from Colombo and Himali Abeysooriya from Kandy, all volunteering their time to the Campaign. Mr. Pillayan was joined by his secretary, ‘Teacher’ Judy, and Dr. Viganrasah, his constitutional affairs advisor,
The discussions were most amiable and productive thanks to the combination of Mrs. Galappaththy’s colorful and disarming style of conversation and the serious and more academic inputs from others.
The team started the conversation by emphasizing the importance of the proposed reforms to women or even to men in politics. The Chief Minister agreed
Thought of dropping a comment as I see two familiar names found mention in the post: Ari Galapaththy and ‘Teacher’ Judy. Both figures are notorious in the district known for corruption, thugary and all sundry dirty things. You name it! The former is absolutely corrupt politician and the latter is absolutely corrupt NGO bigwig having earned billions of money robed from NGOs. She is also trying to come to politics with the upcoming election. The people of Trincomalee know very well about them. They are indeed shame to women in general and Trincomalee women in particular
Sadly, politics and politicians in our country are automatically equated with corruption. In my view,all politicians ((with the rare exception of a few) get tagged with the corrupt label whether they are really corrupt or not.
I have found Mrs. Galappaththy to be gutsy, forthright etc. At this stage of the game where we have so few women in politics, I like to err on the side of not equating her with corruption.
I should add here that the CM Pillayan said at the our meeting with him that two of the main concerns regarding the proposed bill to amend the local government elections ordinance of 1989 is (a) having the minister pick the delimitation committee and (b) the proposed formula for selecting members. We were not able to get a copy of their written response but we came away with the impression that the issues can be resolved through dialogue between the government and the Eastern PC.