The president appoints and heads a cabinet of ministers responsible to Parliament. The president's deputy is the prime minister, who leads the ruling party in Parliament. A parliamentary no-confidence vote requires dissolution of the cabinet and the appointment of a new one by the president.
Parliament is a unicameral 225-member legislature elected by universal suffrage and proportional representation to a 6-year term. The president may summon, suspend, or end a legislative session and dissolve Parliament. Parliament reserves the power to make all laws.
Sri Lanka's judiciary consists of a Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, and a number of subordinate courts. Sri Lanka's legal system reflects diverse cultural influences. Criminal law is fundamentally British. Basic civil law is Roman-Dutch. Laws pertaining to marriage, divorce, and inheritance are communal.
Under the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord of July 1987--and the resulting 13th amendment to the constitution--the Government of Sri Lanka agreed to devolve significant authority to the provinces. Provincial councils are directly elected for 5-year terms. The leader of the council majority serves as the province's Chief Minister; a provincial governor is appointed by the president. The councils possess limited powers in education, health, rural development, social services, agriculture, security, and local taxation. Many of these powers are shared or subject to central government oversight. Predating the accord are municipal, urban, and rural councils with limited powers.
Sri Lanka has a multi-party democracy that enjoys considerable stability despite relatively high levels of political violence. LTTE terrorist activities, generally aimed at destabilizing Sri Lanka politically and economically, have included assassination of politicians--killing the Industrial Development Minister by suicide bombing in June 2000; the December 1999 attempted assassination of current President Kumaratunga; bombing of economic targets such as the central bank in January 1996, the World Trade Center in October 1997, and the airport in July 2001; as well as attacks on Buddhist religious sites: in January 1998, the LTTE detonated a truck bomb in Kandy, damaging the Temple of the Tooth relic, the holiest Buddhist shrine in the country.
Country name:
Data code:
CE
Government type:
republic
Capital:
Colombo
Administrative divisions:
8 provinces; Central, North Central, North Eastern, North Western, Sabaragamuwa, Southern, Uva, Western
Independence:
February 4, 1948 (from UK)
National holiday:
Independence and National Day, February 4, (1948)
Constitution:
adopted August 16, 1978
Legal system:
a highly complex mixture of English common law, Roman-Dutch, Muslim, Sinhalese, and customary law; has not accepted compulsory ICJ jurisdiction
Suffrage:
18 years of age; universal
Executive branch:
Legislative branch:
unicameral Parliament (225 seats; members elected by popular vote on the basis of a modified proportional representation system by district to serve six-year terms)
1994 percent of vote by party - PA 49.0%, UNP 44.0%, SLMC 1.8%, TULF 1.7%, SLPF 1.1%, EPDP 0.3%, UPF 0.3%, PLOTE 0.1%, other 1.7%; seats by party - PA 105, UNP 94, EPDP 9, SLMC 7, TULF 5, PLOTE 3, SLPF 1, UPF 1
Judicial branch:
Supreme Court, judges are appointed by the president; Court of Appeals, judges are appointed by the president
Political parties and leaders:
Political power in Sri Lanka has so far always been held by one of two parties, alone or in alliance with smaller parties. The older is the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP, led by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga), with its allies making up the People's Alliance. The United National Front (UNF) is built around the United National Party (UNP, led by Ranil Wickremasinghe).
Other significant parties today include the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF, an alliance of all the LTTE-friendly Tamil parties), the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, mainstreamed from its violent past), and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC).
There are many other small parties: All Ceylon Tamil Congress or ACTC [leader NA]; Ceylon Workers Congress or CLDC [leader NA]; Communist Party [leader NA]; Communist Party/Beijing or CP/B [leader NA]; Democratic People's Liberation Front or DPLF [leader NA]; Democratic United National (Lalith) Front or DUNLF [leader NA]; Desha Vimukthi Janatha Party or DVJP [leader NA]; Eelam People's Democratic Party or EPDP [leader NA]; Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front or EPRLF [leader NA]; Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students or EROS [leader NA]; Lanka Socialist Party/Trotskyite or LSSP (Lanka Sama Samaja Party) [leader NA]; Liberal Party or LP [leader NA]; New Socialist Party or NSSP (Nava Sama Samaja Party) [leader NA]; People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam or PLOTE [D. SIDDHARTHAN]; People's United Front or MEP (Mahajana Eksath Peramuna) [Dinesh GUNAWARDENE]; Sri Lanka People's Party or SLMP (Sri Lanka Mahajana Party) [leader NA]; Sri Lanka Progressive Front or SLPF [leader NA]; Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization or TELO [leader NA]; Upcountry People's Front or UPF [leader NA]; several ethnic Tamil and Muslim parties, represented in either parliament or provincial councils
Political pressure groups and leaders:
Buddhist clergy; labor unions; Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE (insurgent group fighting for a separate state); radical chauvinist Sinhalese groups such as the National Movement Against Terrorism; Sinhalese Buddhist lay groups.
International organization participation:
AsDB, C, CCC, CP, ESCAP, FAO, G-24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, ICFTU, ICRM, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, IHO, ILO, IMF, [IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO, ITU, NAM, OAS (observer), OPCW, PCA, SAARC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNU, UPU, WCL, WFTU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO.
Flag description:
yellow with two panels; the smaller hoist-side panel has two equal vertical bands of green (hoist side) and orange; the other panel is a large dark red rectangle with a yellow lion holding a sword, and there is a yellow bo leaf in each corner; the yellow field appears as a border that goes around the entire flag and extends between the two panels
Political conditions
Sri Lanka's two major political parties--the UNP and the PA--embrace democratic values, international nonalignment, and encouragement of Sinhalese culture. Past differences between the two on foreign and economic policy have narrowed. The SLFP, however, envisions a broader role for the state in general.
conventional long form:
Sri Lanka Prajatantrika Samajavadi Janarajaya (Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka)
conventional short form:
Sri Lanka
former:
Ceylon
note:
North Eastern province may have been divided in two - Northern and Eastern
chief of state:
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (since November 12, 1994); note - Ranil Wickremasinghe is the prime minister; in Sri Lanka the president is considered to be both the chief of state and the head of the government, this is in contrast to the more common practice of dividing the roles between the president and the prime minister when both offices exist
head of government:
President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (since November 12, 1994)
cabinet:
Cabinet appointed by the president in consultation with the prime minister
elections:
president elected by popular vote for a six-year term; election last held December 21, 1999 (next to be held NA December 2005)
election results:
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga reelected president; percent of vote - Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (PA) 51%, Ranil Wickremasinghe (UNP) 42%, other 7%
elections:
last held December 7, 2001
election results:
2001 (75.8 % turnout) percent of vote by party - Ekshat Jathika Pakshaya (United National Party, UNP) 45.6%, Bahejana Nidasa Pakhsaya (People's Alliance, PA) 37.3%, Janatha Vimuktasi Peramuna (People's United Liberation Front, JVP) 9.1%, Tamil Vimuktasi Peramuna (Tamil United Liberation Front, TVP) 3.9%, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) 1.2%, Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) 0.8%, Democratic People's Liberation Front (DPLF) 0.2%, the Sinhala Urumaya (0.6%) and the New Left Front (0.5%) gained no seats.