But that’s not news.
What is news is that she wants to change the constitution.
See, she’s the president, and as such, she’s limited to two terms in power. That time is up in two years.
The Prime Minister has no such limitation, but there’s no power in being a Prime Minister – comparatively speaking.
What does she want to do? She wants to abolish the executive presidency – the President’s position, essentially – so that the power resides in being the Prime Minister. The way it was back before the constitution was changed to create the executive presidency in 1978. Or maybe 1977. Then she’ll run for Prime Minister.
But at the moment, there’s no point in her running for Prime Minister because there’s no power in that position, and as such, would be a complete waste of her time.
She requires a 2/3 majority in parliament in order to make these changes. Because of proportional seats or proportional voting or whatever the heck it’s called, she has 14 out of 22 districts, which she’s calling 2/3. Never mind that it’s not – it’s one district short of 2/3, or only 63.63%, not 66.67%. But let’s not let math get in her way. She’s claiming that that gives her the majority she needs.
Ignoring the fact that she has less than half the seats in parliament. Ignoring the fact that she only got 45% of the votes – not even half the country!
But she’s twisting things around to suit her.
Also not surprising.
She wants to make other constitutional changes as well. Not just abolishing the executive presidency. She also wants to abolish proportional voting so she’ll have more seats in government. The smaller parties would, as a direct result, wind up with fewer, if any at all, seats than what they get now. Essentially, it would mean that government would wind up being a two-party government with no minor parties represented.
Bye bye Muslim parties. Bye bye Tamil parties. Hello UNFA and UNP. Both Sinhalese Buddhist parties.
