The Second Republican Constitution of Sri Lanka, which was adopted in 1978, completed its 40th year since its enactment. Over these 40 years, the Constitution was amended 19 times and the 20th Amendment to the Constitution is already tabled in Parliament. Although the United National Party (UNP) claims that the 1978 Constitution was brought in as a solution to the country’s problems, the Constitution itself has become the source of many issues. In fact, politics in our country after 1978 was mainly focused on responding to many issues that occurred due to “constitutional mishaps”. The executive presidency, the preferential voting system, the 13th Amendment, and the 19th Amendment are essentially a set of unresolved questions linked to the 1978 Constitution. I thought of mentioning this since the discussion on the current political situation is based on two major constitutional amendments. The two amendments in the limelight are the 13th Amendment and the 19th Amendment. The President sought the opinion of the Supreme Court last week on the possibility of holding provincial council (PC) elections under the previous Act in a situation where the newly introduced Act is in a deadlock. The President himself stated a few days ago that after the enactment of the 19th Amendment, the administration of this country had gone astray. The underlying message here is that the Government is trapped within the 13th and 19th Amendments. At the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) national convention held last week, he stated that the presidency had lost its powers and therefore, the SLFP will take the correct decision based on the prime ministerial position. It is clear that the political discourse of our country has once again fallen into a constitutional trap.

The Government appointed a committee to compile the delimitation report in accordance with the new Bill on Provincial Councils Elections, which later presented its report to Parliament. This report was defeated by a two-thirds majority. In my understanding, this type of political behaviour shows the cheap political thinking of some political parties representing our Parliament

In this column, I will discuss the main manifestation of this issue – the Government’s strategy to postpone the long-overdue elections of the provincial councils established by the 13th Amendment. Powers of the President The President sought the opinion of the Supreme Court on holding the continuously postponed PC elections, but the Supreme Court clarified that the old Act is no longer applicable and that the elections should be held according to the provisions of the newly proposed Act, of which the delimitation report is a compulsory requirement. Approving the proposed delimitation report was deliberately muddled by UNP and SLFP MPs who were part of the Unity Government at the time. The idea behind the introduction of PC elections by the 13th Amendment was to establish a provincial governance structure to devolve powers solely held by the centre (central government) as a solution for minority issues. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution provided the necessary powers for the provincial government. By now, eight out of nine PCs have lapsed as a result of reaching their official terms of five years. There is nothing wrong in claiming that the eight PCs are now indirectly governed by the President because they are governed by the governors appointed by him. In my point of view, the PCs have been given a great deal of power in some sectors and there is a possibility of serious matters transpiring when these powers are centred on one point. For example, PCs have a similar scope in administrative matters in sectors like health and education. At present, since all these powers are exercised through a governor appointed by the president, we can argue that a significant component of the country’s governing powers comes under the purview of the president. It is clear that the inability to hold PC elections was due to the Government’s tactics set up to avoid elections. First, they said that the Provincial Councils Elections Act should be amended in order to increase the representation of women. Since the matter was questioned by the judiciary, they later claimed that it is more appropriate to change the Bill to a direct representation system over a preferential voting system. According to the new Act, which the Speaker has already signed, it is compulsory to have an annexed document defining the boundaries of the electorates as the provincial election should be held on an electorate basis. Others join forces As the next tactic, the Government used this step to delay PC elections. We recall that not only the UNP and the SLFP, the main groups in the Unity Government, but also the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), who were part of the Opposition, joined forces with the Government to support the defeat of the delimitation report in Parliament. The Government appointed a committee to compile the delimitation report in accordance with the new Bill on Provincial Councils Elections, which later presented its report to Parliament. This report was defeated by a two-thirds majority. In my understanding, this type of political behaviour shows the cheap political thinking of some political parties represented in Parliament. At the time, we stated that these four main parties were pushing the entire system of provincial councils into a serious crisis by defeating the delimitation report to conceal their inability to face the voters. This fact appears more evident now according to the Supreme Court’s definition, meaning that PC elections cannot be held under the old law as that is no longer valid. However, the PC elections cannot be held under the new Act either as the delimitation report was defeated by a two-thirds majority. This is why some people argue that regardless of whoever comes into power, the next government need not do anything new but rather continue the same constitutional operation practised by the “Good Governance” Government. I do not know whether the forces that are supposed to be progressive, like the JVP and the TNA, voted in favour of this as they wanted to indirectly hand over some powers to the President through the 13th Amendment, since the 19th Amendment reduced certain powers of the executive presidency. However, if the attempt to postpone PC elections using a technical strategy leads to a natural abolition of the 13th Amendment, that would be recorded in the history of the country as one of the most serious mishaps in our political discourse. Nevertheless, obtaining the consent of the TNA, which set the North on fire demanding for a provincial council system since 1989, and the JVP, which set fire in the South speaking against the provincial council system in 1989, to indirectly pave the way for an abolition of the system could be seen as an achievement of the “Lichchavi principles” adhered to by the Prime Minister. (The writer is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy, University of Peradeniya. He can be reached on Twitter via @charith9)