Amidst strong indications following the Uva provincial election result that a panicked regime is planning an early presidential election, there has been a vigorous debate in the media about the consequences of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished the presidential two-term limit and removed other procedural restraints on presidential power. There was of course no comparable opposition or even public interest in the issue when that amendment was enacted in 2010. In the triumphalist afterglow of war victory, this blatant attempt at entrenching presidential authoritarianism and dynastic consolidation was ignored by most and even welcomed by some. Only an infinitesimal minority in the parliamentary opposition, the media, and civil society opposed this pernicious measure then, only to be roundly condemned as traitors for their trouble. Still, better late than never, and it appears that the Southern electorate is at last waking up after the excesses of the long post-war party, albeit with a nasty hangover in the form of a constitutional and democratic crisis.
