Editorial
Abolishing the Executive Presidency
The Friday Forum has made a welcome reappearance after a somewhat long absence, an event which we warmly welcome. We carry the statement the group released a couple of days ago in this issue of our newspaper and urge readers to digest the commentary set out with due diligence. Its signatories are persons of the utmost integrity and achievement in academia and elsewhere who are not political activists or aspirants – though they undoubtedly hold political opinions – and their viewpoint on contemporary national development deserve the consideration of all thinking people. In their statement, Friday Forum while elaborating of many ongoing shortcomings in the governance of the country has socked home the point that the “toxic” executive presidency must be ended this year.
The week that passed saw the issue of a short bulletin by the President’s Media Division (PMD) which said among other things that the presidential election that is due this year will be held as constitutionally mandated. Obviously this statement, issued on the directions of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, was a clear reaction to ongoing rumours/ accusations/ allegations, or whatever label you may choose to stick on it, that machinations are afoot not to hold these elections as due now crowding the public space. Given that it has only been a few months since this country watched with wide open mouths the spectacle of nominations for local elections being duly received and polling dates set, but the election not held on grounds that there was no money to fund it, who can blame anybody for being suspicious of the possibility of any kind of villainy being afoot? The PMD may have signed off its bulletin less formally than the customary “By His Excellency’s Command” as many communications from his office conclude. But the message remains the same.
Dr. Nihal Jayawickreme, an eminent legal academic in an article in the opposite page asks “why on earth the PMD bulletin was issued to assert the obvious?” Why indeed. “Was it to stifle the movement for restoring the parliamentary executive that appears to be gaining wide public support?” he has asked. As is very well known to all Lankans, we have had several presidents elected to office promising the electorate that they would abolish the executive presidency fathered on us in 1978 by President J.R. Jayewardene, swept into office with an unprecedented five sixths parliamentary majority a year earlier. The highly respected British journal, The Economists, once called JRJ “Junius Rex,” deliciously punning on his name and monarchical attitudes which made him publicly proclaim that there was nothing he could not do under his constitution “except make a man a woman or vice versa.”
While Mahinda Rajapaksa, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Maithripala Sirisena vowed to the electorate that they would abolish the executive presidency, none of them did so. In fact, Rajapaksa engineered a constitutional amendment abolishing the previous two-term limit to give himself a third term and disastrously lost the 2015 presidential election to Sirisena, touted as a “common opposition candidate” and was elected to office on UNP votes. Sirisena who now says that he’ll raise “both hands to abolish the executive presidency” was able to welsh on his campaign promise perhaps on account of the untimely death of Ven. Madulwawe Sobhitha, who along with the UNP were the major factors in his election. Rajapaksa who recently went on record that he stood for the abolition of the executive presidency admitted he enjoyed holding that office.
President CBK, now making a reappearance in the political scene following her role in securing the “common opposition” nomination for Sirisena in 2015, came closest to abolishing the executive presidency with a new draft constitution, finalized after consultations with the major opposition, with an ironclad guarantee of abolishing the office. But a transitional provision for her to exercise the powers of that office until the end of her term, allegedly introduced without consultation with other stakeholders, resulted in the UNP setting fire, in the chamber of the House, to that document presented to parliament by then Constitutional Affairs Minister GL Peiris, in August 2000. There are those who believed then President Kumaratunga may have been persuaded to back down on those provisions but that was not to be and Kumaratunga served two full terms as executive president till November 2005.
While the president himself has not formally declared his candidature for a presidential election later this year, his proxies have done so and the machinery to run for election is being set up. While the Rajapaksa have not said that Ranil will be the SLPP candidate at such an election, insisting that their candidate will be presented at the “right time,” individuals and sections of their party have indicated their backing for Wickremesinghe. The president seizes every possible opportunity to call upon the opposition to join the government to revive the economy but does not himself show the slightest sign of cooperating with the opposition on anything. Anura Kumara Dissanyake, leader of the NPP/JVP and Sajith Premadasa are declared candidates. Nihal Jayawickreme has found hilarious the demand of Chief Opposition Whip Lakshman Kiriella of the SJB that the presidential election be first held and thereafter the executive presidency abolished. However events may unfold, there is a clear public perception that this outcome is highly desired by the country.
Friday Forum has bluntly said in its statement: “The time has come for us as citizen to demand that the abolition of the Executive Presidency is realized as a matter of urgency in 2024. It is a toxic model of governance that has damaged public institutions. All the major political parties of this country made this promise and never fulfilled it……”
Saturday 8th June, 2024
It was with shock and dismay that we received the news about death threats to COPF (Committee on Public Finance) Chairman Dr. Harsha de Silva over the ongoing parliamentary probe into the on-arrival visa scam. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, in Parliament, that he was facing death threats and intimidation, and it was incumbent upon Parliament to ensure his safety. He stopped short of naming names, but revealed that some ruling party MPs were among those who had ganged up against him. The Speaker only said there had been no complaint, and he would look into the matter.
The SLPP-UNP government has been doing everything in its power to have all parliamentary committees under its thumb. The COPE (Committee on Public Enterprises), which once helped restore public faith in the legislature by exposing state sector corruption, has now become a mere appendage of the incumbent regime, thanks to the appointment of SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena as its Chairman. The SLPP-UNP combine also tried to oust COPF Chairman Dr. de Silva, but in vain. However, it knows more than one way to shoe a horse.
The COPF, under Dr. de Silva’s chairmanship, has been a thorn in the side of the government, which is struggling to cover up numerous corrupt deals. Dr. de Silva yesterday told Parliament that he found it extremely difficult to function as the COPF head due to severe resource constraints his committee was facing; he himself had to pay the salaries of some of his staff members besides burning the midnight oil.
The sheer workload he had to cope with as the COPF chief had taken its toll on his health, he said, informing the Speaker that he was at the end of his tether, and at times thought of resigning from the COPF. This is exactly what the government wants him to do; resource squeezes and threats are aimed at making him quit.
On 26 May, Dr. de Silva revealed, in an ‘X’ post, that the COPF had uncovered some vital information about the visa scam and it would reveal everything after its final meeting on the issue; the COPF was committed to exposing the truth behind the controversial tender, he added. In an editorial comment on 27 May, we warned him.
While thanking him for his bold stand, we pointed out that by making such a statement, he had thrown caution to the wind, and become a marked target, with the government making an all-out effort to delay the COPF investigation lest the truth should come out much to the detriment of its interests in this election year. Unfortunately, what was feared has come about; Dr. de Silva is complaining of death threats and government moves to strangulate the COPF financially to derail its investigations.
Dr. de Silva’s predicament exemplifies the fate that befalls the few good men and women in Parliament. It is hoped that all those who seek an end to the state sector corruption will rally behind Dr. de Silva, and bring pressure to bear on the government to ensure his safety. Let Dr. de Silva be urged to reveal the names of those who have issued threats, veiled or otherwise, to him and are trying to scuttle the COPF probes.
Friday 7th June, 2024
The SLPP-UNP government is going hell for leather to make bad laws as if there were no tomorrow. It is abusing its parliamentary majority, which has been retained with the help of some crossovers, for that purpose. The Opposition, the media and trade unions are up in arms, and understandably so. The incumbent regime is a dead man walking; it is so desperate that it is capable of anything. Hence the need for it to be restrained.
The Electricity (Amendment) Bill (EAB) plunged Parliament into turmoil yesterday, but the government secured its passage. The Supreme Court (SC) determined the entire EAB inconsistent with the Constitution and recommended changes thereto. After unveiling the Bill, sometime ago, Minister of Power and Energy Kanchana Wijesekera hailed it as an excellent piece of legislation aimed at straightening up the power sector to serve the public interest better.
The SC determination left him with egg on his face. He reminded us of the proverbial curate who, while eating a stale egg, assured his host, a Bishop, that parts of it were excellent. Wijesekera’s egg, as it were, made Parliament stink yesterday, but he sought to please his masters by praising it as a silver bullet.
EAB should have been discarded and a new one drafted in consultation with all stakeholders. But the government is apparently driven by an ulterior motive; its aim is not to serve Sri Lanka’s interests but to look after those of some moneybags.
It is not uncommon for Bills to contain some flaws, which are rectified either before or during the committee stage. But there is something terribly wrong with draft Bills that are full of sections inconsistent with the Constitution. The drafters of EAB have demonstrated their sheer ignorance of the supreme law, and that they are not equal to the task of drafting Bills. If they had read the Constitution at least perfunctorily, they would not have drafted such a bad law.
Ignorant and incompetent, they do not deserve to be paid with public funds and must be sent back to law school. They must be summoned before Parliament and questioned on their serious lapses, which have caused public faith in the national legislature to diminish.
Curiously, the MPs who demand that judges, doctors, Central Bankers, and other public officials be summoned before Parliament have taken badly drafted Bills for granted. The power sector trade unions yesterday alleged that EAB was of Indian origin and geared towards furthering the interests of Adani Group at the expense of Sri Lanka.
Most critics of EAB are agreeable in principle to the need for power sector reforms; the Ceylon Electricity Board should be given a radical shake-up, and transformed into a modern organisation capable of providing a better service at a lower cost. They only asked the government to tread cautiously, consulting all stakeholders and taking action to ensure that the country’s interests prevailed over everything else. But the government was in a mighty hurry to steamroller the Bill through Parliament, making the Opposition ask whether it was doing so at the behest of some external forces involved in controversial power generation deals here.
What is passed by the current Parliament can be either amended or abolished by a future parliament in a constitutionally prescribed manner. But that does not mean that a government is free to pass bad laws, making the country enter into long-term agreements with powerful nations and their investors. It looks as if the SLPP-UNP regime did not care two hoots about the consequences of its actions.
Thursday 6th June, 2024
The outcome of India’s parliamentary election (2024) has led to a ‘perspective ambiguity’. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lost no time in declaring victory for the BJP-led NDA alliance, which secured 293 seats in the 543-member Parliament, but he must be a worried man. The BJP is short of 32 seats to form a government under its own steam; it has lost 63 seats or about 20% of its parliamentary strength. It had 303 seats in the previous Parliament, and that number has dropped to 240.
Modi has become the second Indian Prime Minister to win a third term. The first PM to do so was Jawaharlal Nehru. But Nehru won an outright majority in Parliament in 1962; Modi has had to depend on smaller parties in his alliance to retain his hold on power. Modi must be reeling from a sharp drop in his victory margin in his own constituency, Varanasi; it has decreased to 152,000 from 480,000 in 2019 whereas Modi’s bete noire, Rahul Gandhi, won Raebareli by a staggering 390,000 votes.
Modi, who reigned supreme with 303 seats in the previous Parliament, is now dependent on parties such as Nitish Kumar’s JD-U and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP to form a government. He has had to lead an alliance of strange bedfellows. Both Kumar and Naidu were bitter critics of Modi. Kumar helped form the oppositional alliance, the INDIA bloc, before switching his allegiance to PM Modi. Naidu also closed ranks with the BJP in the run-up to the election. These politicians have been described as extremely ambitious and highly unpredictable, and whether Modi will be able to manage them and consolidate his grip on the NDA alliance remains to be seen. They will demand plum ministerial posts in return for their support. The TDP is said to be eyeing Transport and Health portfolios! That is the name of the game in coalition politics, where it is not uncommon for the tail to wag the dog, so to speak. These two political leaders are however not the only problem Modi will have to contend with. The next five years will feel like an eternity for PM Modi.
Nothing would have been more shocking for the BJP than its defeat in Uttar Pradesh’s Faizabad constituency, where the Ram Mandir has been built. Modi may have thought he would be able to win the Lok Sabha election hands down after the consecration of that temple, which became a centrepiece of the BJP’s election campaign. The BJP lost that seat to the Samajwadi Party! Modi must be disappointed that the Ram Mandir hype failed to trigger a massive wave of support for his party. This particular defeat signifies a massive setback for the BJP’s ethno-religious agenda.
Modi’s divisive election campaign failed to yield the desired result. The BJP’s failure to secure an outright majority could be attributed to a host of factors, some of them being the suppression of the Opposition, the arrogance of power, chronic unemployment, and the rising cost of living. The BJP also did not care to reimage itself in a positive light to attract the youth.
Modi will hereafter see the Congress-led INDIA bloc with 223 seats, in his rearview mirror. The Congress (99 seats) and its allies have eaten into the BJP support base considerably, but they have a long way to go before being able to capture power.
The bumpy ride ahead for the BJP-led coalition government to be formed may improve the INDIA bloc’s chances of bettering their electoral performance and turning the tables on the BJP and its allies in time to come. Modi will have a lot to worry about in his third term.
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