Most people worried about referendum: Chandrika

Former Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

The Sri Lankan government will soon launch a campaign to garner support for a new Constitution which it hopes to put to a referendum this year, former President Chandrika Kumaratunga said.

“Most people are worried about a referendum. Given the general situation at the moment, [they fear] whether one could win a referendum,” she told Colombo-based foreign correspondents on Tuesday. Her comments come at a time when Sri Lanka is drafting a new Constitution that minority Tamils hope will deliver a lasting political solution.

Committed to reforms

Observing that President Maithripala Sirisena was committed to the constitutional reforms he promised ahead of his election, Ms. Kumaratunga said the challenges facing the government were huge compared to what she faced as President in the 1990s. “At that time there were no organised extremist groups like the JHU, the BBS or a Joint Opposition led by a former President — it has come up only recently. That is a formidable challenge,” she said referring to hard-line Sinhala nationalist political parties and Buddhist organisations, and the Mahinda Rajapaksa-led faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

However, despite apparent apprehensions within sections of the government, “I always err on the side of optimism,” said the former President.

The campaign, she said, would be modelled on the Sudu Nelum (White Lotus) movement of the 1990s, when President Kumaratunga had embarked on a constitutional package that went well beyond the 13th Amendment, which guarantees some measure of devolution to the provinces. Considered one of the most progressive drafts penned in the country, the document was rejected by both Sinhala-nationalist sections in the south and the LTTE in the north.

Following the change in government in 2015, Ms. Kumaratunga has been chairing the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation, involved in evolving programmes for reconciliation. From the experience of “working with the Tamil community closely” and visiting the Tamil-majority areas in Sri Lanka’s north-east, she said: “The people are not singling out war crimes, that is the Tamil diaspora.”

Common people wanted infrastructure development, jobs, university education for their children and some answer to the question of missing persons. “They are very keen on that.”

“Obviously someone is responsible for war crimes, but that has to be looked at thereafter [following constitutional reform]. If you start war crimes tribunals, you can be quite sure that there won’t be a new Constitution. We have to prioritise,” Ms. Kumaratunga said.