Editorial
Lohan Ratwatte: What will be will be
State Minister Lohan Ratwatte’s wild behaviour at the Anuradhapura prison last week has triggered universal condemnation and rightly so. He has tendered his resignation from one of his ministries, Prison Management and Prisoner Rehabilitation, but not from his position at the Ministry of Gems and Jewellery related industries prompting The Island to editorially describe him as a “gem of a minister!” But chuckles apart, the public continues to be kept in the dark about much of this horrific incident. For instance, was his resignation accepted by the president a command performance or did he, admitting culpability for gross misbehaviour, volunteer to resign? Either way more questions arise. If his departure from the prisons portfolio was on demand, why was he not asked to quit his second state ministry? If he volunteered the resignation, why was he not told to go the whole hog and give up gems and jewellery as well because he has amply demonstrated that he is totally unsuitable to hold public office.
Getting Tamil prisoners held in the Anuradhapura Prison under terrorism laws produced before him at the prison, brandishing a revolver at their faces, getting at least two of them to kneel before him and threatening to kill them was preceded by another incident at the Welikada Prison in Colombo where he and a group of friends including a woman, allegedly under the influence of liquor, had paid a late night visit and inspected the gallows. Apparently the authorities there had done nothing to restrain him, adopting the all too common ehei hamuduruwaney approach and letting him have his way. If anybody at Welikada had the guts to stand in his way, the Anuradhapura incident probably would not have happened. Unfortunately only very few public servants today stand up to political authorities and do their jobs without fear or favour. The whole country is paying a price for that. The few instances where public officials do stand their ground in confrontations with politicians are so rare that when that does happen, it’s headline grabbing news. So it was when a woman official of the Wild Life Department resisted an effort to destroy a mangrove.
There is some small consolation that Ratwatte has gone from prisons. Most people would believe that he should have gone into prison but that’s way too much to expect in this Democratic Socialist Republic of ours. Mr. Dew Gunasekera, a former Minister of Prisons and leader of the Communist Party, a constituent of the ruling SLPP, went on record on Friday that a cover-up was underway. Be that as it may, Ratwatte who had initially said that an investigation would reveal the truth, had since come out strongly breaking his silence and claiming he has “stopped the prisons from burning” according to Friday’s Daily Mirror. This report quoted him asking “Am I stupid to threaten prisoners?”, claiming he “never touched Tamil prisoners.” Admitting he had visited the Welikada gallows, he had claimed he had gone alone on an inspection and was not intoxicated. Ratwatte says the truth will be revealed to the president and prime minister. Newspapers well know that there are two sides to every story. But hackneyed as the cliché may be, it is nevertheless true that there’s no smoke without a fire. Both sides have now had their say so let us see how the drama will further unfold.
Much of the blame for the untoward incidents involving politicians can be laid at the door of leaders of most parties. They are too often guilty of running undesirable candidates on their party lists enabling them to get elected. The proportional representation (PR) system of elections that President J.R. Jayewardene imposed on this country through his 1978 constitution better enables undesirables to enter the legislature than under the previous constituency system. There is no gainsaying that there are pluses and minuses under both systems. PR prevents national political parties that have polled 30 and 40 percent of the vote at an election from being totally wiped out in landslides such as those we saw in 1970 and 1977. Of course there are exceptions such as what happened the last time round when the UNP was reduced to zero despite PR. The explanation for that was the Ranil – Sajith split. JRJ used his five sixths majority of 1977 to ensure that nobody got a two thirds majority enabling constitutional amendments in the future. But that has now been proved wrong.
The mere fact that somebody who’s charged in a court of law is discharged or acquitted does not necessarily mean he or she is not guilty. There are many reasons why prosecutions fail – shoddy investigations and prosecution, influencing witnesses, able defence counsel and many more. The conviction rate in Sri Lanka is a mere four to six percent according to published figures but we all know what the crime rate is. It is not only in this country that dicey characters get elected both to Parliament and lower down. India is much worse with as many as 43% of its Lok Sabha MPs having criminal records. The chances are that some kind of committee of inquiry will be appointed to investigate allegations against Lohan Ratwatte. This is akin to the pithy Sinhala idiom horage ammagen pena ahanawa (asking the thief’s mother about his whereabouts). The committee of UNP lawyers who them Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed to investigate the bond scam is recent enough to be remembered. We won’t bet serious money or even petty cash that any government appointed investigation will hold against Ratwatte.
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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