"Sri Lankan Parliament passes amendment to eliminate term limits for president" by Associated Press | September 9, 2010
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Parliament voted to eliminate term limits for the president yesterday, a move critics say could lead to dictatorship.
The amendment also will tighten President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s hold on power by giving him total control over the judiciary, police, and the civil service.
The main opposition group, the United National Party, boycotted the vote and burned an effigy of Rajapaksa at a protest in the capital.
Lot of that going around these days.
But the constitutional amendment passed easily, with 161 votes in the 225-member Parliament. That’s 11 votes more than the two-thirds majority required. Seventeen lawmakers voted against it.
Six United National Party members and one member from the Tamil National Alliance, the main party representing ethnic minority Tamils, defected and voted with the government....
Rajapaksa is popular among the country’s Sinhalese majority for crushing a 25-year separatist insurgency by ethnic Tamil rebels. But critics say he has exploited that good will to consolidate power with the aim of setting up a family dynasty. Two of his brothers are senior ministers, another is defense secretary, and his son is a lawmaker....
Opposition supporters held protests in some parts of capital, but were outnumbered by government supporters brought in from all over the country who held pictures of Rajapaksa in a show of solidarity.Notice that isn't such a problem when those the agenda-pushing MSM support do it?
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