Colombo, January 17

Sri Lanka’s prime minister today announced officials would use social media to seek public opinion on a proposed new constitution aimed at preventing a return to ethnic war.

Ranil Wickremesinghe said Sri Lanka will use social media to help draft a new statute to devolve more powers to the minority Tamils and ensure unity after decades of war. “Sri Lanka could be the first country to get views expressed on social media to contribute to drafting a new constitution,” he said. “We want to seek the views and opinions of young people. Participate in this process.”

Sites such as Facebook and Twitter played a key role in supporting Wickremesinghe’s election in August as well as during the January 2015 presidential election at which he supported Maithripala Sirisena. Since coming to power, the new government has set up free wi-fi zones in many public places to encourage the use of web-based services. The government is opening a new office in Colombo tomorrow to start receiving written proposals from the public for the new constitution.

Wickremesinghe travelled to the former war-torn zone of Jaffna to pledge to devolve political power to minority Tamils.