Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera said he is “hopeful”, the parliament to be elected later this year, will introduce a new constitution, one which will “meet the aspirations of all the peoples of Sri Lanka”.
Speaking in parliament during a debate on the 19th Amendment, which is due to be voted on later today, the foreign minister said “democracy, rule of law and human rights, reconciliation and ethnic harmony must be the foundation for the new Sri Lanka we all dream about.”
“Whether it is the tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities or the Sinhalese and Muslim communities, eradicating the motivation for terrorism and violence requires us to go beyond dealing with its symptoms. The root causes of ethnic conflict need to be addressed once and for all, constitutionally,” he said.
“A new constitution that addresses the concerns and grievances of the minorities is the urgent need to be addressed by the next parliament. The resolution of our ethnic conflict, which continues after war, is sine qua non for Sri Lanka’s march forward toward peace and prosperity,” he added.
Tamil commentators expressed scepticism at the ability of a new parliament to bring in a new constitution, especially considering the ongoing wrangling over passing a mere amendment to the current constitution.
University of Jaffna law lecturer RK Guruparan questioned whether the UNP would make a new constitution an election pledge, ahead of the forthcoming polls.
“We have heard these words before most notably from Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge under whom Mr. Samaraweera also served. But the key question is as to whether Mangala would be able to make this the key part of his election campaign in the upcoming general elections,” Mr Guruparan said to the Tamil Guardian.
“The challenge for him will be as to whether he will be able to campaign openly for a non-unitary constitution in the next election. A new constitution cannot be created in secrecy. So his rhetoric - in English in parliament - will be tested by whether the UNP is willing to make a non-unitary constitution the centre piece of their upcoming election campaign - in Sinhala in the rural South of Sri Lanka,” he said.
The 19th Amendment, which was initially designed to abolish the executive presidency, is expected to pass later today after amendments were made by members of parliament, which mean the executive nature of the presidency will be retained.