The People's Liberation Front (JVP) in Sri Lanka moved a motion in Parliament to abolish the Executive Presidency and replace it with a new one in which the Prime Minister is the head.
The JVP yesterday presented to Parliament a bill titled 20th Amendment to the Constitution to abolish the executive presidency. The bill was presented to the House by JVP MP Vijtiha Herath. The bill will seek to amend Article 4 of the constitution, which has vested the executive power in the President, elected by the people
Security around the Parliament was beefed up, after intelligence reported that the joint opposition was likely to converge.
"This was an unkept promise over a long period of time. There were many pledges to abolish the executive presidency but it was never implemented," Vijitha Herath said in Parliament.
According to Herath, the new motion aims at preventing too much power being conferred on a single individual.
"This (the existing system) has made an individual too powerful," he said.
The current president headed system was introduced in 1978 after Sri Lanka was under a Westminster model parliamentary system since 1948. The system has been blamed for most of the political ills in the island country, including the long standing dispute with the Tamil minority for their demand for power sharing.
Since it was introduced, all parties have pledged to abolish it. Every president, since 1994, have elected to honour the pledge to abolish the presidency. However, the pledge was never kept.
In the event the motion gets approved, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa may stand to gain as he would then be free from the term bar in the current Constitution. The 73 year old Rajapaksa was twice elected to the post, but is constitutionally barred from running for Presidency again.
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