The Sri Lankan Parliament has by a large majority approved a constitutional amendment concentrating powers under President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and reversing reforms a previous government had made to curb authoritarianism.
After the August elections gave him the parliamentary votes to change the charter, Rajapaksa had said the amendment would be his government’s priority because the reduced presidential powers hindered his work.
The 20th Amendment to the constitution was passed late on Thursday with a 91-vote majority, with 156 lawmakers in the 225-member parliament voting in favor and 65 against it.
Photo: EPA-EFE
With the change, Rajapaksa will be able to hold ministries, as well as appoint and sack ministers.
He will also be the appointing authority of the elections, public service, police, human rights, bribery or corruption investigation commissions.
These commissions were perceived as independent with a constitutional council comprising of lawmakers from different political parties and civil personalities making the appointments. With the amendment, the constitutional council is abolished for a parliamentary council whose observations the president is not bound to implement.
The president can also dissolve parliament after two years and six months of the legislature being elected instead of the previous law that prohibited the president from dissolving parliament until six months before its five-year term ends.
Rajapaksa also overcame internal opposition to a clause that lifted a ban on dual citizens holding political office.
This will pave the way for a sibling who is a US citizen to enter parliament, further strengthening Rajapaksa family’s hold on Sri Lanka’s political power. Rajapaksa’s older brother, former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, is prime minister. Another older brother and three nephews are also lawmakers — three of them ministers.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa renounced his US citizenship last year to run for president.
The amendment was passed with several changes because the Supreme Court had earlier determined certain clauses in the original proposals were against people’s sovereignty and they needed approval in a public referendum to become law.
Accordingly, the government brought back clauses enabling citizens to challenge a president’s actions in court, subjecting the president’s office to financial audit and making the president answerable to parliament.
Sri Lanka has been ruled under a powerful executive presidential system since 1978, but a reformist government in 2015 clipped much of the president’s powers and gave them over to the parliament and independent commissions, saying successive presidents had been more authoritarian.
However, Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that educed powers has deterred him from performing his duties.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in