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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sri Lanka
Index
![[PDF]](/images/frd/cs/pdf.gif)
Figure 11. The Structure of Government, 1987
Sri Lanka has benefited from the traditions of the rule of
law and constitutional government that emerged during 150 years
of British colonial rule. At least until the early 1970s, these
traditions fostered the development of a political system
characterized by broad popular participation in the political
process, generally strict observance of legal guarantees of human
and civil rights, and an orderly succession of elected
governments without the intervention, as has occurred in several
neighboring states, of the military. By the early 1980s, however,
many observers feared for the future of Sri Lanka's democratic
institutions. Some observers contended that constitutional
government, rather than curbing the arbitrary use of political
power, seemed itself to be shaped by aggressively narrow
sectarian interests whose manipulation of the constitutional
amendment process excluded large numbers of persons from politics
and contributed to ethnic polarization and violence.
Data as of October 1988
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