Last week the rumour mills went into over-drive with speculation that the Chief of Defense Staff, General Sarath Fonseka, would be throwing his hat into his ring at the presidential election.
If he is to contest an election, he will have to resign from the armed forces first. The provisions of the Chief of Defence Staff Act No: 35 of 2009 became fully operational by the Gazette notification 1609/21 issued by the president on July 10, 2009. According to article 3(3) of the Chief of Defence Staff Act, the CDS may at any time resign from his position by letter addressed to the president.
However, according to article 3(4) the resignation of the CDS will not take effect until the president accepts the resignation in writing. The question is, what if the president does not accept the resignation, or sends the letter accepting the resignation only after nomination day? The rule that binds all armed forces personnel is that you can join voluntarily, but cannot leave as and when you want. According to the CDS Act, the president has the discretion to accept the resignation of the CDS or not.
We have to wait for Nov. 15 until the announcement of an election is made at the SLFP convention. Then we have to wait and see who will be legally in a position to hand in nominations before the end of the deadline.
from http://wp.me/ptjVt-1ge (edited story of island)
sarath
mahinda
bt its all up 2 de head of state when dealing with military stuff...
