Concerns over new powers for Sri Lanka President
Sri Lanka’s parliament has today approved constitutional reforms which will enable President Mahinda Rajapakse to seek a third term and will give him sweeping powers over formerly independent institutions.The constitutional amendment will enable him to appoint key officials to the judiciary, the police, the electoral commssion and the central bank.
The 225-member parliament voted 161-17 in support of the 18th amendment.
While the president’s party and its allies do not themselves command the parliamentary majority necessary to automatically pass the bill into law, it has been widely alleged in Sri Lanka that parliamentarians were either bribed or intimidated into pushing the bill through.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the constitutional changes did not require approval by referendum.
In presenting the 18th Amendment to parliament today, Prime Minister Dissanayake Jayaratne said there was nothing undemocratic with the proposals. Those opposed to the amendment say key democratic insitutions are being turned from servants of the people into instruments of state.”Anyone with an interest in constitutional democracy in Sri Lanka will be very, very worried by this,” says Asanga Welikala, a constitutional lawyer with the Center for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka.
“Six year presidential terms – now carrying on forever – the removal of checks and balances, blanket immunity… this consolidation of presidential power is a very disturbing development.”
Alan Keenan of the International Crisis Group said: “Today is a black day for Sri Lankan democracy.”"The Amendment further entrenches the already near-total powers of president. ”These changes will deepen the cancer of impunity and the politicisation of all government institutions.”
Country faces “danger”
Despite the stifling of the political opposition and the intimidation of journalists and critics of the government, there have been howls of protest in Sri Lanka itself over what is perceived – in some circles – as an assault on democracy and good governance. The Ceylon Federation of Labour, an independent trades union, warned starkly: “It is time that all democratic forces wake up to the danger the country faces.”
A Tamil MP talked of “the death of democracy” during today’s parliamentary debate.
Many oppostion MPs walked out in protest. Demonstrators belonging to the opposition United National Party burned an effigy of the president.
Protest poster comparing President Rajapakse to Adolf Hitler
The owner of a Colombo press which printed two posters of the president – one of which portrays him as Hitler, with the strapline “He is a dictator” in Sinhala, has been arrested.
Mr Jayampathy Bulathsinhala was arrested on Tuesday night along with his wife and two brothers and eight other workers at his plant. The other members of his family and employees were released after interrogation at Colombo’s Mirihana police station but Mr Bulathsinhala continues to be held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which provides for
14 days’ detention without charge.
The 64-year-old President was re-elected in January and his Sri Lanka Freedom Party and its allies secured a large majority in parliament not long afterwards. (The next presidential election won’t be until 2016).
Protest poster of President Rajapakse put up in Columbo
Like Sinhala kings of old, the President has established a Rajapakse dynasty. He appointed himself minister of finance, minister of planning, minister of highways, ports and aviation and minister of defence. He also appointed his unelected brother Gotabaya defence secretary and put him in charge of all three arms of the military, the coast guard, the police and foreign and domestic intelligence.
Gotabaya Rajapakse was the architect of the final assault on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.Mahinda’s elder brother Basil is special adviser to the president, economic development minister and the head of the investment promotion board. Both Basil and Mahinda Rajapakse’s son, Namal, won parliamentary seats in April.
Mahinda’s oldest brother Chamal, formerly a cabinet minister, is speaker of Parliament, while his son, Shashindra is chief minister of Uva Province.
MoreChannel 4 News stories on Sri Lanka
- Sri Lanka’s Fonseka: ‘I will never give up’
- Sri Lanka’s Rajapaska wins re-election
- Sri Lanka video ‘appears authentic’
- Execution video: is this evidence of ‘war crimes’ in Sri
Lanka?
The 18th Amendment entrenches the Rajapakse clan in power.It will now be harder than ever to unseat him. “It doesn’t bode well,” a spokesperson from Amnesty International told me.
“But what worries us most from a human rights point of view, is how the amendment removes the safeguards on executive authority.” In a stroke, 18-A –as it’s known – nullifies and supercedes previous amendments, thus abolishing virtually all checks and balances on the presidency.
It gives the president the power to appoint the Chief Justice and judges in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal. He can appoint the Attorney General and the Auditor General.He will have the power to appoint chairmen and members of formerly independent commissions, among them, the Election Commission, the National Police Commission, the Human Rights Commission and the Permanent Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery and Corruption.
The president will have the power to remove anyone on these commissions who exhibits any tendencies that are not those expected of a Rajapakse loyalist.President Mahinda Rajapakse has broken promises made to his people on the conclusion of the war last year; promises to share and devolve power and to unite his nation. He has also broken his election promises. Just five years ago he explicitly and unequivocally committed himself to abolishing Sri Lanka’s executive presidency. Today, his power is absolute.
There are 20 comments on this post
Sri Lanka has a NATIONALIST government…
that will not bow down to IC – AI – HR – NGO’s & Channel 4….
You can Scream…Yell…Shout…Whine…Cry…
Where were you ?? – when the LTTE was killing for 30 years…
You tried to save – Terrorist Praba & his suicide bombers & child soldiers…
Then objected to …when Sri Lanka Armed Forces forced this Terrorist to float face down in a Sri lanka lagoon…
Sri Lanka will be Economically Developed by
our National Hero….Presedent Mahinda Rajapakse…
Rajapakse has been promoting a personality cult around himself for some years now. The present government of President Mahinda Percival Rajapakse is the first to fully embrace the Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist ideology.
Thanks to the existing constitution:
In Article 9, the constitution of Sri Lanka says: “The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana . . . .”
Now:
With the people of Sri Lanka increasingly cut off from the outside world, a Dictatorial Dynastic Rule is what Sri Lankans are opting for making the minorities below second class citizens.
Thank you, Jonathan Miller for bringing the news to the world.
We cannot imagine the depths the country will hurtle through.
It’s going to hurt the oppressed people the most.
But then the oppressed people have been hurt so much in the last five years that they could not be hurt any more.
now the sinhale deserves it, once Tamil Nadu in india has election they will form Tamil Eelam while Sinhala is still stuck with Mahinda Rajanazi,
We knew this way before, but sinhala was to slow to notice anything… LOL!!!!
when can i come home and live in peace and dignity? that day will never come
It is sad to see Jonathan Miller is still under the spell of pro-LTTE elements. It also reflects how the C4 is still not changing its stripes. I do not want to anyway attack the massenger. But it is the massenger here important not the message as it is looked through a distortion lence. Let Sri Lanka (or any other countr) take their own cause. Let them develop. There is no single model for democracy or governance. The West is failing in every aspect today and they are trying to take the entire humankind into extinction. You do not know how to respect others views and ways. In the Orient people know how to respect others ways and views. When Jonathan is pinpointing to Rajapaksa’s for final offensive against the brutal LTTE why does he forget Sarath Fonseka. Clearly as he wants to blame only Rajapaksas – not the system. It is not professional journalism. But I know very well you will continue to smear Sri Lanka. But, mind you, Sri Lanka will this time take off – nobody can stop it.
“He also appointed his unelected brother Gotabaya defence secretary and put him in charge of all three arms of the military” Jonathan you know nothing about Sri Lankan system. Defence Secretary was always responsible for the all three arms of the military – not only Gotabaya.
When the Sinhalese reach the point when enough is enough they will appreciate what the Tamils have been through and it will be too late for them and the minorities will be passive onlookers, if indeed there were to be any left.
Self serving politicians should be ashamed to have brought this down on a Democracy which, till the other day, was somewhat an envy of a few States in Asia.Witnessing our country of birth going down the tubes, irrespective of reasons thereof, cannot be savoured even by the oppressed Tamils, driven out of the country.
It is true Janak that nobody can stop this country.
It is sad in these countries that the poor mass is always made to praise the leaders with lack of moral compass, civility and full of coarsiness. (I refer to the interview I watched from this former 7/11 storekeeper, nothing else but book keeping)
It is insane that praise comes not for the love of the country but to stir up communal inharmony.
This syndrome is only in very few countries.
Others have improved with the global wave for civility and good culture.
18th Amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution
It’s a tragedy that the Rajapaksa Brothers have channeled all the country’s meager resources and effort into entrenching themselves in power (shades of Kim Jong Il and his clan).
Rajapkse’s adroit manipulation of our venal politicians would have been the envy of Machiavelli: he certainly knows to hit the sweet spot when it comes to offering ministerial carrots to turncoat MPs.
At this rate, he’ll soon have to set up a “Ministry for invention of Ministerial Portfolios”.
Really … don’t his urbane western-educated lackeys like GL, Rajiva, Palitha etc. cringe when they have to invent portfolios that sound like the result of word games?
On the other hand, those who fall out of favour can have no doubt that they’ll get the Fonseka treatment.
Rajapkse, just like any Mafia godfather, has no qualms about bribing or intimidating his way to setting up a family dynasty, surrounded by courtiers like Mervyn Silva (that learned exponent of the “Sri Lankan Rope Trick”) who claims that people end up tied to trees, miraculously.
Perhaps this could be just the sort of good governance that these crooks have…
I think, the 18th Amendment is the “last nail in the coffin of democracy” the constitutional reforms enabling Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa to seek a third term.
This could pave way for a military rule in the Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka government was opening “the door for a military coup in the country by introducing the 18th Amendment to the constitution”
The bill that will enable the President to seek a third term in office is passed by Parliament late tonight, where the ruling coalition has a two-thirds majority.
This bill will be a “dark day for democracy”.
Thank you Jonathan Miller for giving limelight to what is happening to ordinary folks in Sri Lanka –
Whether its Tamil, Sinhalese or Muslim the situation of Mr Jayampathy Bulathsinhala says it all.
TNA MP Sumanthiran’s submission against 18th Amendment
http://vimeo.com/14879911
MP Sumanthiran says here,Govt of Sri Lanka gave different version of copy to the Supreme court and cheated the legal system. Supreme court overruled and said there is no need for a public referendum for the consitution.
can you inform us the place where you obtained the photographs of those so-called posters?? beacuse i live in colombo, and I never saw such a poster pasted anywhere??
Gaiya,
Mr Jayampathy Bulathsinhala was arrested on Tuesday night along with his wife and two brothers and eight other workers at his plant.
If you live in Colombo, Khartoum or Rangoon, there is nothing much you would know about.
Sorry Gaiya.
When I look at your RSS feed it gives me a ton of strange characters, is the deal on my side?
President Rajapakse rightly deserves praise for standing up to the bullies hiding in the Western world to finance the terrorists and using their leverage in marginal constituencies to exert power over poorer Sri Lankans, Tamil and Sinhala alike. Post colonial signature in Sri Lanka was a tragic one; vast differences in economic power, access to education, demands for eqality of lanaguage bua minority numbering under 20 %, areas under subjugation of worst caste practices like exclusion from water from wells, access to places ofworship. Yet the so called voice for reedom, – western journalists, preachers who had learnt aboutlive burnings, inquisitiuons flock to Sri Lanka.
Without their help, Sri Lanka is alive again free of terrorism. It is time Channel 4 investigated not the feelings of US ambassador in Sri Lanka, but who financed the electoral campaign for the disgraced former Gerenral FOnseka.
I agree that most people want to live in peace but in all democratic countries people who feel that the law is not listening to them have the right to public demonstration. Sometimes it is the only way that they can bring their grievances out in the open. The law does not always do the right thing by people especially if they are a minority group. You will always have your point of view but sometimes like all of us we have to stand back and look at why people resort to the action that they choose to take. Agreed, there are always at least two sides to a story and I am interested to know why you think that people should not have the right to voice their protest and why you think that the use of guns may be justifiable. They may not represent all of the civilian population on the island but they are people who seem to be standing up for something that they think is right and I for one do not think that shooting at them is the right thing to do. If the law of your country is as good as you think it is then why can it not resolve this situation peacefully?
I found this is an helpful and funny essay, so I think it is very benificial and knowledgeable. Thanks for the efforts you have made in writing this submission. I am hoping the same important work from you in the future as well. In fact your creative writing ability has encouraged me.
A person essentially support to make seriously articles I would state. This really is the very first time I frequented your website page and thus far? I surprised with the research you produced to make this particular publish incredible. Amazing job!