Pri's blog

In an interview with Diane Silva in today's Daily Mirror,  Vasudeva Nanayakkara, the former Leftist firebrand that as an undergraduate I would brave a crowded Arts Theatre to listen to, says I take the 18th Amendment in its totality and in its entirety and therefore I cannot give the positive features and the negative features separately because the terms are all interwoven into one whole. Therefore my position is that I disapprove of the 18th Amendment in substance. He explains that he voted for the 18th Amendment  in Parliament because the political strategy of his Democratic Left Alliance was to continue its engagement with the UPFA and that that meant that we had to vote along with the Government while stating our position very clearly.... I am a member of one of the constituent parties of the alliance, and therefore if we had not voted in line with the Government, it would have been incongruous, conflicting, incompatible and impractical. Incongruous, conflictin...

My counterpart at the Institute of Policy Studies, Saman Kelegama was quoted in the media last week as seeing the 18th Amendment as a move to create much needed political stability. ‘Stability is what we have been looking for, if you look at the experience of China, political stability counted a lot in China (for its development) and it was the same in the three East Asian (Tiger) countries (Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore)’ he was quoted as saying  in the Sunday Leader .   The paper adds that   Kelegama   thinks that the   time and effort taken for ‘political coalition management’ could be used to ‘concentrate more fully on economic management.’    I am certain that ‘political stability’ at any cost is not what I would advocate for, but let’s concede Saman’s point for a moment.   I am assuming then, that this government, with all the power it now has, will now be able to push through changes that were previo...