Debate on 19A tomorrow:
End of executive presidency?
By Uditha Kumarasinghe
The parliamentary debate on the country’s most- awaited piece of
legislation in decades, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, begins
tomorrow morning with the nation holding its breath as to the outcome.
If the voting goes in favour, Sri Lanka’s now much-derided presidential
form of government will be drastically transformed removing the
currently all-powerful office of the executive president. For the first
time, since it was introduced in 1978 during the UNP regime of the time,
the current system that enabled successive presidents to accumulate and
abuse their executive power, will end.
However, political analysts warned that the passage of the Amendment
Bill will not be smooth even after all the bargaining and negotiations
between the various political interest groups. While it is the faction
of the UPFA formerly governing party group in Parliament that has been
hostile to the Bill, some of the ethnic minority groups also remain
cautious over the Bill.
Despite the announcement by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party’s Central
Committee on Thursday, the 23rd, that the party was now committed to
supporting the 19A Bill, later statements by some senior party MPs
indicated that the passage of the Bill was uncertain.
Voting on the 19A is scheduled for Tuesday evening. Since it is an
amendment to the Constitution, a two-thirds of the vote in Parliament,
amounting to 150 MPS, is required to pass the Bill.
Of the 225 MPs, the UPFA group has 144 MPs, UNP 60, Ilankai Thamil
Arasu Kadchi (ITAK/TNA) 14, and the Democratic National Alliance 7. Of
these, the previous line-up of declared supporters of the 19A comprised
the MPs of the UNP, ITAK and DNA (which is largely the JVP).
After Thursday’s announcement by the SLFP, it is only those few MPs
belonging to the other factions in the formerly governing UPFA, namely
the National Freedom Front of Wimal Weerawansa (2 MPs), and Dinesh
Gunawardena’s Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (3 MPs) remain to oppose the Bill
if they wish to do so.
While none said that they will oppose it, several of the rebel UPFA
and SLFP factions have been delaying the debate on the Bill with demands
for amendments to the Bill.
The debate on the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was postponed
for April 27, due to the objections raised by the main Opposition UPFA
which wanted adequate time to study the proposed amendments.
The decision to postpone the debate was made following a Party
Leaders emergency meeting with President Maithripala Sirisena at the
Parliamentary complex on Tuesday (April 21).
This was the third consecutive time the debate was postponed as the
Party Leaders failed to reach a consensus on the issue after several
rounds of talks held in the past couple of days. Government legislators
who maintain a completely different view on the subject alleged that the
Opposition deliberately attempted to sabotage the passage of this
important piece of legislation which is the climax of the Hundred Day
program presented to the people by President Sirisena in his election
manifesto at the last Presidential election. |