By M D P DISSANAYAKE

During both Presidential and General Elections, the main promise was to scrap 19A.  Rarely we heard a counter view that some of the conditions will be retained.   The public would have been suspicious as to which articles would be retained requiring the SLPP  to provide an explanation.  The strategy to promise to scrap 19A in its entirety  worked well, on both occasions.

Then, in the process of drafting 20A, the government wanted to curry favour the public, for which it gave publicity that under the new draft the President’s term will be reduced to 5 years from 6 years and maximum of two terms.   Nobody gave any credit for the government for reducing the presidential term to 5 years.

By providing a lengthy 43 page, the government has opened a can of worms.    It provided an opportunity to the opposition, toothless tigers in the cabinet, social media, trouble making buddhist monks to dig deep into each and every Article in the draft, which easily  received wide audience.    This was an absolute foolish act on the part of the government.

Instead, as promised during the campaign, the draft  should have sought the approval to scrap the 19A in its entirety instead of arguing that  the purpose of 20A would be similar to the status at 18A.  This argument  was not true as clearly clarified by the Judiciary. If the intention of the government was to revert to18A, the simplest methodology was to scrap, delete, abandon 19A.

In our opinion, after the difficult passage of 20A, the current constitution is in fine form, Sri Lanka need to simply scrap 13A in its entirety.  No need of a new constitution.

Lets get on with solving basic issues and economically develop the country, at least to the levels of Malaysia and Vietnam.