{"id":76747,"date":"2018-04-23T15:07:32","date_gmt":"2018-04-23T22:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=76747"},"modified":"2018-04-23T15:07:32","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T22:07:32","slug":"the-support-for-abolishing-the-executive-presidency-is-a-fools-errand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/04\/23\/the-support-for-abolishing-the-executive-presidency-is-a-fools-errand\/","title":{"rendered":"The support for abolishing the Executive Presidency is a \u2018Fool\u2019s Errand\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ranjith Soysa MEDIA RELEASE\u00a0<\/strong>SPUR<\/strong> (S<\/strong>ociety for P<\/strong>eace, U<\/strong>nity and Human R<\/strong>ights for Sri Lanka Inc)<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u2013 22 April 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Society for Peace Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka (SPUR) joins other nationalist organisations, professionals and patriotic politicians in strongly condemning the proposal to abolish the Executive Presidential System in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

The territorial integrity and unitary state of the nation is critically dependent on an Executive President who is directly elected by all its eligible citizens regardless of ethnicity, religion or regional\/local interests.\u00a0 In particular, it acts as a counterweight to the separatist features of the 13th<\/sup> Amendment because the peoples\u2019 sovereignty over the entire nation is exercised by the President through the Provincial Governors.<\/p>\n

It is indeed the Executive President, who is also the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, who played a vital role in providing political leadership and mobilising the resources to protect the country from the separatist forces and resisted foreign interference during war with the Tamil Tiger Terrorists.\u00a0\u00a0 Even in recent times, the perpetrators of infamous Central Bond Scam would not have been exposed even to this extent if not for the intervention of the President.<\/p>\n

At a time when the legislative arm of the country has been prone to instability and is being held to ransom by power brokers, it is the Executive Presidency which retains the important role of balancing the power blocks and setting the political direction for Sri Lanka as a whole.<\/p>\n

The Presidential System of Government is widely and successfully used in both Western and Eastern countries.\u00a0 While improvements to the Sri Lankan Constitution are always possible, they should be done with proper analysis and consultation rather than as an expedient short-cut to power at the expense of the nation\u2019s stability and security.<\/p>\n

In the present context, hasty steps are being taken to introduce a new constitution at the behest of the separatist diaspora as well as the external powers which are attempting to change the character of Sri Lanka by enhancing the powers of the periphery at the expense of a strong and unifying centre.\u00a0 The sudden interest of the JVP and other fringe groups in promoting this as a \u2018democratic\u2019 solution is nothing but a trap to enshrine the separatist \u2018power sharing\u2019 among racist enclaves within a weakened Sri Lankan State.<\/p>\n

It is indeed unfortunate that some representatives of the Joint Opposition appear to support the abolition of the executive presidency.\u00a0\u00a0 Those on this \u2018fool\u2019s errand\u2019, dreaming that it could be linked to the dissolution of Parliament followed by early election, are in fact \u2018throwing out the baby with the bath water\u2019 in return for short-term gains in political power.<\/p>\n

Hence, we urge the Joint Opposition, the SLFP as well as the patriotic members of all other parties to oppose any proposal to abolish the Executive Presidency.\u00a0 We also appeal to the people of Sri Lanka to be alert to this impending threat and reject any such Constitutional Amendment if and when it is placed before them at a future Referendum.<\/p>\n

Ranjith Soysa<\/p>\n

(Spokesperson)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ranjith Soysa MEDIA RELEASE\u00a0SPUR (Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka Inc) \u2013 22 April 2018 The Society for Peace Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka (SPUR) joins other nationalist organisations, professionals and patriotic politicians in strongly condemning the proposal to abolish the Executive Presidential System in Sri Lanka. The territorial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}