Sri Lanka's 62nd
anniversary of Independence coincided with the election of the country's sixth Executive President. Thus it was a dual celebration on February 4, when the Independence celebrations were held in Kandy, the hill capital.
The selection of Kandy for the celebration was also
significant in that it was the last stronghold of the Sinhala kings who resisted the attempts by foreign
powers to capture the whole country. At least until 1815, when the British succeeded in capturing the hill country, independence was
maintained with the king holding sway over the
kingdom of Kandy.
After the British took over the hill country, helped by dissension among the Kandyan chieftains who were divided in their
loyalty to the king, there were at least two rebellions – one in 1818 and the other in 1848 – to wrest power. However, these attempts were crushed.
In the 20th century the independence struggle was at a different level. Our
leaders preferred to make it a constitutional effort.
From an "educated Ceylonese" electorate to select just one Sri Lankan (Ceylonese as he was then called) to the Legislative Council (1910), everyone over 21 years of age got the right to vote in 1931, with the Donoughmore Constitution when a State Council was established in place of the Legislative Council. Fifty members were elected from territorial
constituencies. There were three ex-officio members without voting rights and up to eight members nominated by the Governor.
It was a steady, forward march until the Soulbury Constitution introduced a parliamentary system of
government in 1947. People were increasing their voice in governing the country.
When Independence was granted in 1948, the State Council had been replaced by a Parliament consisting of an Upper House (Senate) and a Lower House (House of Representatives).
As for the Executive, the Governor who represented the British Monarch was all powerful when Sri Lanka was a colony in the British Empire. Even when the Legislative Council had
unofficial members, he had
a dominant voice.
Under the parliamentary system of government, the British Monarch's
representative became
powerless with the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers playing the role of the Executive.
With the adoption of the Republican Constitution
in 1972, the Governor-General (as the monarch's representative was called at the time) was replaced by a non-executive President whose role was mainly
ceremonial. The Second Republican Constitution promulgated in 1978, when the United National Party (UNP) after a landslide
victory at the 1977 general election had a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives needed to change the constitution,
created the executive
presidency.
The President of
Sri Lanka then became the Head of the State, Head of the Executive and of the Government, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. He is elected by the people for a period of six years. The new
constitution provided for the incumbent Prime Minister
to become the first
Executive President and
J. R. Jayewardene took his oaths at the Galle Face Green before the Chief Justice on February 4, 1978.
President Jayewardene decided to call for a Presidential Election after four years in office, in
keeping with the provision in the Constitution stating that an incumbent President can call for an election after
completing four years of his six-year term to enable him to seek a mandate from the people for a fresh term. He won the 1982 election.
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga who was elected in 1994, decided to seek a mandate before the expiry of her term of office and secured a second term
at the election held in December 1999.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa did exactly the same when he decided to call for an election after
completing four years.
He won the Presidential Election held on November 17, 2005 and at the Presidential Election held on January 26, 2010, he won a resounding victory recording 57.88% of the total votes polled. He polled 6,015,934 votes as against 4,173,185 (40.15%) polled by his main rival, General Sarath Fonseka. Thus he had a majority of 1,842,749 votes. |
E-mail
