President was misled to support 19th Amendment: Dayasiri 

• Says Amendment has brought in confusion on who governs the country 
• Raises questions over President’s term again
• Says there are many grey areas over who has power
• But adds now is not the time for fresh Amendments 
  
   

SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekara

By Chathuri Dissanayake

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SFLP) levelled fresh criticism on the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which their leader President Maithripala Sirisena mooted during his 2015 Presidential Election bid. 

Making a bid to defend President Sirisena’s comments regarding the 18th and 19th Amendments over the weekend, SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekara yesterday claimed that the President was “misled by his advisors at the time” to believe that the Amendment, which reduced his powers and his term of office, would be a positive change.

Jayasekara also repeated Party concerns over the term of office of the President, despite President Sirisena already receiving a Supreme Court Interpretation of the same, saying that the commencement and end of the five-year term is not clear as per the Articles in the Amendment. 

“This was a case of being stabbed in the back, he was told that this was a good Amendment, and he believed in it, as he had faith in his advisors then,” Jayasekara, said saying that the President now realised that he has been duped into relinquishing his Executive powers “that are now vested in the Prime Minister,” leading to issues in governance.

Jayasekara argues that due to different phrases used in Article 43 of the 19th Amendment relating to the appointment and management of the Cabinet of Ministers, there is a “state of confusion created”, while also taking away the powers the President had. He claims the Amendment has “left the country in a leaderless state.” 

“In one instance the Article says, the Cabinet should be appointed in consultation with the Prime Minister, and then the next Subsection uses the word advise, while the third Subsection uses the word ‘in concurrence’, which is confusing, a Constitution should be clear and should not have any ambiguities.”  “There is a state of confusion whether the PM should be informed or not,” he claimed. 

The SLFP party stalwart also claimed that changes to the Constitution that “should require a referendum have also been included in the 19th Amendment.” According to him, this includes the trimming of powers of the President, where the Executive’s powers to dissolve Parliament have been restricted as well. Jayasekara claimed this was done to take control of the Government from an Executive President, and to create a more powerful Prime Minister. 

“Before the Amendment, Ranil Wickremesinghe was the passenger of the bicycle that someone else was pedalling, the Amendment switched seats and Ranil Wickremesinghe now pedals and President Maithripala Sirisena now sits in the bar of the bicycle,” he claimed. 

While advocating for the need for a clear Constitution, without ambiguity on who is vested with powers to control the Cabinet and other functions, and the procedures for Commissions enacted under the 19th Amendment, Jayasekara claimed that it was not the time for fresh Amendments to the Constitution.  “This is not the time to amend the Constitution,” he noted.  “This is still a governance system under the President, but what has happened now is an attempt to create a Prime Ministerial system within this existing system; that is the problem here. On one side, the President has powers, and on the other side, the Prime Minister has powers, and they wanted to take over power to govern because they appointed Maithripala Sirisena as President,” he claimed.