The 18th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka was passed in Parliament with a two-thirds majority a short while ago. It was passed with 161 members voting for and 17 against, while the main Opposition UNP members were not present in the House during voting time.
The six UNP MPs, Abdul Cader, Earl Gunasekera, Upeksha Swarnamali, Nimal Wijesinghe, Lakshman Seneviratne and Manusha Nanayakkara who crossed over to the Government side this evening voted for the amendments. Digamadulla District Tamil National Alliance member P. Piyasena too voted in favour defying the party decision to vote against. UNP Nuwara Eliya District member Sri Ranga voted in favour while sitting with the Opposition.
Apart from the UNP members who supported the amendments, the rest were not present at voting time. Among the Tamil National Alliance members, several were overseas though the party had taken a stand to oppose the Bill in Parliament.
The government obtained a 2/3 majority for the passage of this amendment, which comes after 33 years, barring in 1988 when the 13thAmendment was passed.
However, the 13thamendment to the Constitution which was passed by a 2/3 majority in 1988 is debated by a section as not reflecting the opinion of elected representatives. They argue that it was passed thus by members whose term of office had been extended by a referendum at a time when the voters were denied the right to elect their parliamentarians since J.R. Jayewardene had suspended General Elections to safeguard his 2/3 majority obtained under a different Constitution which had a single constituency system instead of proportionate representation.
