“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” (Shakespeare) and though President Rajapakse does not literarily wear a crown like Shakespeare’s Henry IV, the Rajapakse presidency further empowered by the 18^th amendment to the constitution, certainly demonstrates to various degrees all the substantive features of an absolute monarchy, from the absence of any time limit on rule, the grooming of an eldest son as heir apparent, the role and function of a ruling family, an intolerance of dissent, a subservient judiciary, a cowed public service and a somewhat repressive security regime.

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