The country’s failed socio-economic-political situation should not be blamed upon a Constitution, National People’s Power NPP (leader) Anura Kumara Dissanayake said yesterday.
Dissanayake also said the failure of the Yahapalana regime should not be equated with the 19th Amendment. “The 19th amendment to the Constitution was practiced with two of the weakest political leaders in recorded political history, Ranil Wickremesinghe and Maithripala Sirisena.
If it was practiced under a responsible leadership, the 19th amendment would have recorded better success,” Dissanayake observed.
Dissanayake made these observations joining the debate on the draft bill of the 20th Amendment to the Constitution.
Dissanayake observed: “Most of the amendments to the 1978 Constitution have been brought in by governments that had a two thirds majority in Parliament. Every Opposition voted against these amendments.
However there are two amendments brought in by governments with simple majority.
One is Chandrika Kumaratunga’s government which brought in the 17th Amendment to the Constitution and the other one is the 19th amendment by the Yahapalana government. It is noteworthy that despite having a simple majority in Parliament, these two amendments received the highest number of votes in favour. Only one MP voted against both amendments.Thus, this government is able to present the 20th Amendment not because there is reconciliation between different political parties, but because it has a two thirds majority. The power of legislation that the Opposition MPs too have is not utilized when presenting this bill. So this amendment is in the same nature of 17 amendments made to the Constitution previously.”
