President Mahinda Rajapaksa will abandon moves to amend the Constitution to enable him to contest any number of times for this post. Instead, he has agreed ‘in principle’ to create the office of an Executive Prime Minister. The change in thinking was conveyed yesterday by President Rajapaksa to Opposition UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. The two held a one-on-one meeting last morning at the ‘Janadipathi Mandiraya’ (President’s House) to discuss the proposed constitutional amendments and other political issues.

After having failed in its last attempt to get the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to back Sri Lanka against Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the government is making a last ditch effort to convince the 118-member group to take sides in the growing political confrontation at the United Nations.