Proposal to curtail presidential powers amid unrest
SRI LANKA’S government last Thursday (30) proposed amending the constitution to trim presidential powers and beef up anticorruption powers to help shore up stability and defuse unrest provoked by the country’s worst financial crisis in decades.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who critics blame for the financial crisis for having given key posts to relatives and being slow to seek an IMF bailout, has been under prolonged pressure to step down, though he has said he plans to stay on until his term ends in 2024.
Two of his brothers resigned earlier as prime minister and finance minister following weeks of street protests.
The proposed amendment, whose draft was published last Thursday, would establish a constitutional council and nine independent commissions to improve governance. The commissions would work to promote human rights, increase audit oversight of government agencies and bolster anti-graft investigations. The amendment could be presented to parliament this month, justice minister Wijedasa Rajapakshe said last week. It might undergo further changes before it is eventually passed into law.
Critics, however, say the amendment did not go far enough to tackle the demands of protesters. “The present attempt is tokenistic at best and fails to address the unprecedented crisis that confronts Sri Lanka and the clear demands of the people for a system change,” said Bhavani Fonseka, a senior researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a Colombo-based think tank.
Fonseka said the amendment would still allow the president to prorogue parliament at any time while other powers including the ability to remove cabinet ministers would be curtailed only in the next presidential term.