Constitutional tangles in an election year
January 2, 2014
On 19 November 2010, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had been President elect for 10 long months since the dramatic 26 January poll, took his oaths 
on the steps of the Presidential Secretariat.
The entrance to the historic building that housed the first Parliament of independent Ceylon had been transformed on that November morning. At the auspicious time of 10:16 a.m., emerging from behind an enormous backdrop of the rising sun, the President elect greeted his adoring crowds at Galle Face with clasped hands, before being administered the oath of office by then Chief Justice, Asoka De Silva.