Is Sri Lanka A Democratic Country?

By Rashika Saman Kumari Abesinghe – SEPTEMBER 26, 2020

Rashika Abesinghe

Critical analysis of the democratic consolidation in Sri Lanka

The term “Democracy”has a long history, which interconnected with the Greek civilization. Because, it originated from two Greek words which were “Demos”(People) and “Kratos” (Rule). The simple meaning is the people’s rule. Their two major types of democracy which were direct democracy and representative democracy. Currently under the democratic framework, there are direct democracies. On current world the democratic states are having different form of constitutional structures such as Presidentialism, Parliamentarianism, and Semi Presidentialism & hybrid systems. For this study the author mainly selects Sri Lanka as a case study to explore the democratic status of that country. Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a multi-cultural island country which is located in the South Asian Sub Continent. There are several specific reasons behind the selection of Sri Lanka for this study. First, Sri Lanka was a British colony from 1833-1948 and their legislative structure mainly influenced by Great Britain. Most interestingly from 1972-1978 Sri Lanka had a parliamentary system and then in 1978 with constitutional reforms, it converted into a presidential system. Sri Lanka experienced two youth insurrections. In 1971 the first youth insurrection was led by “Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna” against the Sri Lankan government. This can define as a youth struggle against the social injustice. In order to influence and weaken the Sri Lankan government the insurgents took control of the several villages and cities. But this was an unsuccessful struggle and this youth group was defeated by the Sri Lankan governmental forces in 1971 June. Again in 1987 – 1989 the second youth insurrection occurred and it also was led by the “Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna” against the Sri Lankan government. This insurrection was fairly aggressive and violent than the first one. In order to pressurize the government the insurgents conducted attacks against civilians and military. But this also was an unsuccessful effort and it is still difficult to measure the number of lives & value of properties which Sri Lanka lost with those insurrections. Most significantly Sri Lanka is a multicultural country. Not only youth insurrections Sri Lanka also was having a 30 years of ethnic conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a Tamil militant group which advocated a separate Tamil ethnic state in the North Eastern Part of the Country. This civil war finished on 16th May 2009 after the Sri Lankan army forces defeated the LTTE terrorist group. Unfortunately, still it is difficult to measure the economic, social, cultural cost which Sri Lanka had to pay with this LTTE terrorism problem. But according to general estimate, around 75,000 civilians had killed since 1983 and 2,90,000 civilians had reported as displaced persons (UN News Center: 2009).

Currently, Sri Lanka is being vulnerable to the ISIS activities. There is a tendency of Muslim Youth in engaging in ISIS terrorist activities in Sri Lanka. On last Easter Sunday (21st April 2019) there was an ISIS attack in Sri Lanka aiming three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels around the Colombo city. As a result of this attack around 259 civilians were killed and all the suicide bombers were well educated Sri Lankan Muslim youths whom belonged to the wealthy families. The Sri Lankan society is facing struggles continuously. It seems like Sri Lankan society is pressurized by a number of social, political, cultural & economical dimensions. This makes a confusion about the survival of the democratic framework of the country. Therefore the author mainly efforts to finalize whether Sri Lanka is a democratic country or Not? while analyzing the nature of its legislative framework & Human Rights 

Characteristics of a democratic state

While analyses the characteristics of a democratic state it is evident that there is no universal agreed characteristics of democracy. The definition is different in person to person, state to state and institution to institution.

Terry Karl,

“Modern democracy is a system of governance in which rulers are held accountable for their actions in the public realm by citizens, acting indirectly through the competition and cooperation of the elected representatives” 

Robert Dhal,

“It is the responsiveness of citizens (who are in theory “Political equals of rulers”) that is the key characteristic of the democracy”.

Thus, overall legal equality, political freedom, the rule of law consider as the most important characteristics of a democratic state. According to the United States Department of State (1776) democracy has major six characteristics such as citizen rule, Majority rule & minority rights, individual rights, free and fair elections, citizen participation and cooperation & compromise (Rosanne Tomyn: 2018)

Sri Lankan legislature and democracy (discussion from the beginning to present)

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