The Pulse | Politics | South Asia

Why Sri Lanka’s Ruling NPP Has Not Abolished the Executive Presidency Yet

It is prioritizing economic recovery and establishing accountability of powerful people for past crimes to build the mass support needed to pursue constitutional reform.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

Civil society critics of Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the National People’s Power (NPP) government are again asking why they haven’t launched a constitutional reform process to abolish the executive presidency.

A number of governments, starting with the Chandrika Bandaranaike administration (1994-2005), had promised to abolish the executive presidency introduced by the J.R. Jayawardene administration in the late 1970s. The main argument against the executive presidency is that it concentrates too much power in one individual, the president, which is bad for democratic processes.

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the main component of the NPP, has been critical of the executive presidency for decades.

It has been two years since the NPP came to power and its critics regard the delay in constitutional reform as a retreat from the mandate that brought Dissanayake and the NPP to power. However, that interpretation gives disproportionate weight to one electoral promise while ignoring many others. The NPP’s actions in the past two years also show that it is focused on accomplishing reforms that have more visible outcomes.

Dissanayake and the NPP’s appeal rested mainly on its reputation for honesty and its distance from the political establishment that ruled the nation since its independence. These rulers were culpable for Sri Lanka’s economic collapse and 2022 debt default, a fact that has been affirmed even by the country’s Supreme Court. Voters who lost faith in the established parties following the economic trauma of 2022 believed that Dissanayake and his party could form a government that would use public resources responsibly and hold powerful people accountable.

The NPP sought a mandate that extended well beyond constitutional reform. Those who voted for the NPP expected economic recovery and action against corruption that previous governments had allowed to flourish. Horu allamu (Let’s punish the crooks) was the rallying cry of the 2024 elections, and the arrests of several powerful politicians have been welcomed with great public enthusiasm.

The government is also implementing an island-wide anti-drug campaign, the Clean Sri Lanka Project, and a digitization drive. The NPP has prioritized these initiatives that enhance the quality of life of the people and satisfy the public demand to prosecute the corrupt. The resources the NPP has at its disposal are limited, and the government believes that it has pick battles that it can win while governing a country still recovering from economic collapse and exposed to fresh external shocks.

The lesson the NPP learned from the disastrous performance of the Yahapalanaya (good governance) government (2014-2019) was that delivering on promises that produce immediate results should be prioritized.

The Yahapalanaya government established a Constitutional Assembly and steering committee in 2016. Subcommittees examined specific subjects, and an interim report was published in 2017. These committees produced proposals and debate, but these did not result in a new constitution. Besides, the government failed to deliver on its other promises, especially on investigating and punishing the Rajapaksas for their alleged financial crimes. This led to public disillusionment, which allowed the Rajapaksas to return to power in 2019.

Sri Lanka’s economy grew by 5 percent in 2025, and by 4.2 percent in the second quarter of 2026. However, the country is vulnerable to external shocks and the IMF has warned that the war in West Asia has significantly worsened the economic outlook.

Sri Lanka imports all its fossil fuels and LNG and most of its fertilizer. Higher energy costs would threaten household budgets and the foreign exchange reserves. Disruption of fertilizer supplies puts pressure on agriculture. China’s restrictions on fertilizer exports and Russia’s temporary suspension of ammonium nitrate exports earlier this year are worrying developments. These are immediate problems for a government determined to........

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