Sri Lanka government needs to show better results, constitutional reform process not successful - survey

A latest opinion poll conducted by the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a leading public policy research and advocacy think tank in Sri Lanka reveals that a majority believed the government needs to show better results and the government has been unsuccessful in informing people about the constitutional reform process.

The CPA's latest survey on constitutional reforms reveals that only 1.1percent of Sri Lankans believe that the government's performance since January 2015 has been excellent and does not need any improvements while 42.3 percent said that the performance has been good but the government needs to show better results. Another 23 percent believe that the government's performance has been bad but that it should be given more time to deliver results. Only a 16.5 percent thought the government's performance has been very bad and it should be voted out as soon as possible. When asked how successful the government has been in informing people about the constitutional reform process, 55.1 percent of Sri Lankans said that the government has been unsuccessful, with almost 30 percent saying that the government has been very unsuccessful. Within that group 55 percent say the government has been unsuccessful in publicizing the content of discussions within the Constitutional Assembly and it's sub-committees about constitutional reforms. 56.4 percent of Sri Lankans also said that the government has been unsuccessful in obtaining citizens perspectives about what should be included/what should change in the new constitution. However, overall, awareness about the constitutional reform process has somewhat increased when compared to CPA's October 2016 survey. In March 2017, 29 percent of Sri Lankans said that they are somewhat aware compared to the 22 percent in October 2016. Those who say that they did not know that a constitutional reform process is taking place has reduced to 12 percent from 24 percent. When asked if the current constitution should be wholly replaced with a new constitution or whether the current constitution should continue but with some needed changes, 23.5 percent of Sri Lankans said that we need a new constitution while 38.9 percent said that the current constitution should continue but with some needed changes. The three key areas that Sri Lankans believe the Government should priorities at present are: Economy and development, Law and order and Corruption. This selection was made out of a list of five key areas, the other two being constitutional reform and reconciliation. When asked what specific aspect of their first choice (economy and development) the Government should priorities, people said it should be to reduce the cost of living. Over 66 percent of Sri Lankans believe that there are more important issues than constitutional reform and transitional justice for the government to address. This view is held across all Provinces except in the North and East. When asked to specify what these more important issues are, the answers given were all related to the economy and development - cost of living, infrastructure development, economy of the country and unemployment. Conducted in the 25 districts of the country, this survey captured the opinion of 1992 Sri Lankans from the four main ethnic communities. The selection of respondents was random across the country. Fieldwork was conducted from March 14 - 19, 2017.