Sri Lankans vote for an unlimited presidency

Published on Wednesday 8 September 2010 15:14

Sri Lanka's parliament voted to remove limits on presidential terms yesterday in a move critics fear could lead to dictatorship.

The law will also tighten president Mahinda Rajapaksa's hold on power by giving him control of the judiciary, police and the civil service. The main opposition group, the United National Party, boycotted the vote and burned an effigy of Mr Rajapaksa in protest in the capital.

The constitutional amendment passed easily, with 161 votes in the 225-member parliament, 11 votes more than the two-thirds majority required. Seventeen politicians voted against it.

The constitution previously limited the president to two six-year terms, so Mr Rajapaksa's term starting in November would have been his last.

Prime minister Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Jayaratne has defended the move as giving the president the same right that other elected representatives have to seek office without restrictions.

Mr Rajapaksa is popular among the country's Sinhalese majority for crushing a 25-year separatist insurgency by ethnic Tamil rebels. But critics say he has exploited that to consolidate power with the aim of setting up a dynasty. Two of his brothers are senior ministers, another is defence secretary and his son is a lawmaker.

The amendment also scrapped a provision requiring the president to receive the approval of independent commissions in appointing officials to the judiciary, police, public service and the elections office.

"This bill threatens to finally nail the coffin in which the democracy of this country has been laid," MA Sumanthiran, of the Tamil National Alliance, said.