Colombo, June 18: The Sri Lankan President has decided not to refer the draft of the new constitution to the LTTE until it is ratified by Parliament, as she reached a broad agreement with the opposition on the unit of devolution to demarcate the contentious north and eastern province.While the official media here today focussed on a broad agreement reached between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and UNP leader Ranil Wirkamasinghe on the unit of devolution, The Sunday Times newspaper said the President decided not to submit the draft constitution to the rebels before she tabled it in Parliament for ratification.The Sunday Times said both the government and the opposition reached an understanding to set up an interim administration in the north and east for a limited period of three years after which a referendum would be held in eastern areas to ascertain whether people preferred to stay with the north or as a separate province.Unlike the north, Sri Lanka's east has a mixture of Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese population.While the government would continue with the present temporary merger of the north and east as a basis for the unit of devolution to start with, a referendum would be conducted in eastern areas like Trincomalee and Batticaloa to find whether people wanted to stay put with the north."Until such time the referendum is held, an interim council would be established to administer the currently merged north and eastern province," the state-owned Sunday Observer said.But did not mention what would happen to the fate of a southeastern provincial council to be set up after being carved out from Muslim-dominated district of Ampara in the east.The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), a senior partner in Chandrika's coalition has been demanding the formation of such a province to protect the interests of the Muslims.The decision on formation of the interim council and unit devolution follows last week's visit of External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, who had strongly advised the Lankan Government and the UNP here to speed up the process of formation of new constitution giving proper legal guarantees to autonomy and equal rights for minority Tamils.Following this, Chandrika had announced June 30 as the cut-off date for consultations on the formation of the new constitution.However, the UNP registered its disagreement with the government on the decision to bypass the LTTE and submit the constitutional proposals to parliament. The ruling party sources argued that such a consultative process with the LTTE would delay the entire exercise further.This would also give time to the UNP to come up with fresh objections. "Therefore, the Government wants the process to be over by end of next month, after which parliament could either be dissolved or its term extended depending on the willingness of the LTTE to join the peace process," they said.Under the present constitution, parliament's term ends in August this year after which elections have to be held.Though Chandrika has been asking her partymen to be ready to face the polls, officials did not rule out postponement of the polls in view of the delicate constitutional exercise being undertaken.The polls could be postponed with the tacit understanding of the UNP after which the term of the house could be amended with a constitutional amendment followed by referendum.Sources said the fate of the polls depended on the outcome of the formation of new constitution.
