20A controversies: mega cabinet and dual citizenship

By Dr Upul Wijayawardhana

Anomalies created by the ill-thought-out and badly drafted 19A, the most important being the inability of the President to hold the defence portfolio even though he is the head of the armed services must be rectified urgently. Although many objections have been raised to the proposed 20A, most of them are unjustified. One of the objections is that because we have amended our Constitution far too many times, instead of yet another amendment, we should go for a new constitution. Easier said than done! Formulating a new Constitution is a time-consuming process if it is to stand the test of time without further amendments. Having engineered a coup to oust Mahinda, Ranil and his cabal introduced 19A to create an executive premiership in all but name, but unfortunately that resulted in an executive presidency competing with an ‘executive premiership’ and led to disastrous consequences.

Another objection raised is that 20A runs counter to the promise of abolishing the executive presidency. Such a promise may have been made and broken by many past presidents but times have changed. In fact, no such pledge was made by either Gota during the last presidential election or the SLPP in the run-up to the last general election. The superb performance of President ‘Gota’, in spite of the restrictions imposed by 19A, greatly contributed to the SLPP’s spectacular win. By giving a massive mandate, on both occasions, the voters have in effect rejected the pledge made by others to abolish the executive presidency.

Much has been written about independent commissions but the performance of them during Yahapalanaya has shown that many are independent only in name. Any change to the status of these, if shown to be counter-productive, could easily be corrected when the new Constitution is framed.

When I wrote, “We don’t need a deputy PM or dual citizens as MPs” (The Island, 31 August) I was not aware of the proposal in 20A to abolish the limit on the size of the Cabinet. In fact, one of the few good features in 19A was the limit imposed on the number of Cabinet ministers, but the yahapalana leaders found a way around it, showing that they simply were a bunch of hypocrites. The UNP found an excuse to form a national government although it did not make that offer while Mahinda’s government was waging a successful campaign against terrorism. Instead, it ridiculed the war effort.

To their credit, after the general election, the President and PM restricted the size of the Cabinet in keeping with 19A. The President thus reiterated that Cabinet appointments were not perks for long-service or for placating various factions but they were to help develop the country. In this milieu, it indeed is very perplexing why limit on the cabinet size is to be removed with 20A. Portfolios are the biggest political bribes and we should not and must not return to that culture which did immense harm to the country in the past. One can only hope that saner counsel will prevail and this proposal be dropped from 20A.

There does not seem to be even the mention of a deputy PM and it looks as if it was an excuse invented by the supporters of Maithri, who has shown repeatedly that he has no sense of shame.

Disagreeing with me on the rights of dual citizenship holders, an illustrious product of my old school Rahula College, Matara, Prof. R. P. Gunawardane, former Secretary, Ministry of Education and Higher Education and former Chairman of National Education Commission has raised the question, “Why no dual citizenship?” (The Island, 4 September). He states, “Dual citizens are normal citizens of the country and they have all the rights and privileges of all other citizens”. True, but they are a privileged few who enjoy these benefits in two countries. Therefore, their loyalties are divided which can lead to conflict of interest that may affect decision making. Anyone reading the oath of allegiance taken by naturalised US citizens, as stated by R P in his piece, would not have much doubt about this. Imagine our minister in charge of trade, holding dual US citizenship, dealing with China when US has policies that will counter our interests.

Making comparisons with the West perhaps is not the most pragmatic. Let us look at Singapore, a country which was behind us in the fifties but is far ahead of us now due to the sheer dedication of its leadership and people. Although R P has included Singapore among the countries that allow dual citizens to hold any high post, it is not so. Rather, Singapore does not recognise dual nationality beyond the age of 21. This issue came to focus during the appointment of Arjun Mahendran as the Governor of Central Bank when the Yahapalana lie that he was a dual citizen was exposed. I am not suggesting that we go to that extent and abolish dual citizenships. I do agree with R P that many Sri Lankans living abroad, holding citizenship of other countries can make very valuable contributions to the development of the country and our government should facilitate that. However, there should be restriction of the privileges to the extent that they do not hold positions where allegiance to one country is essential. Further, there is the possibility of a future government giving important positions to their henchmen living abroad over those who stayed to serve.

R P Concludes his piece thus, “In the USA, of course, there are many dual citizens holding high positions in the government and also serving as elected representatives in the US congress”. What R P does not mention is that most elected representatives holding dual citizenship do so with Israel. As no declaration is mandatory, exact numbers are not known. Perhaps, if not for this dual allegiance, the Palestinian problem may have been solved long ago and the Middle East would not have been so volatile. Also, the freedom to criticise Israel for some of the atrocities it commits may be less restricted. Any criticism of Israel is labelled anti-Semitic, as happened to the UK Labour Party in recent times.

In fact, the US is the most likely country to exert influence through its citizens who hold high positions in other countries of their origin. It is the only country in the world that goes around engineering regime change. It is widely thought that the US did it to Sri Lanka in 2015, but, fortunately, our voters acted wisely at the last two elections. In fact, some may allege, perhaps with some justification that the deafening silence about the MCC is due to some members of the Rajapaksa clan holding dual citizenship!