Editorial
Election talk in the air
Election talk has once more entered the political space with news reports last week speculating, rightly or wrongly we do not know, of various politicians talking to each other about forging alliances. The ruling Sri Lanka Podu Jana Pakshaya (SLPP) a couple of weeks ago held what appeared from television images to be a well attended political rally at Anuradhapura. Both the president and prime minister made campaign-style speeches there, triggering a belief that some kind of election is not far away. While presidential and parliamentary elections are way down the road, local or provincial elections are a possibility, the former much more probable than the latter which requires an amendment to the law. The SLPP showed the country it was the coming colour when it finished with 40 percent of the votes at the local elections of February 2018 against 29% for Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Front and 12% for President Sirisena’s United People’s Freedom Alliance. Terms of the local bodies then elected are over and another election is due. Of course various permutations and combinations have taken place since the last election and the battle lines will not be same as in 2018.
A reader’s letter we publish today has expressed a fear that despite the government’s present unpopularity in the country over the grave hardship confronting the people on numerous issues ranging from the dizzy cost of living, spiraling inflation, depreciating rupee, foreign exchange crunch, lack of essentials, fears of power cuts, fuel shortages and many more, the ruling party retains some ability to enthuse its supporters. That was what the television pictures showed, some more so than others depending on the political bent of the station. We are all aware that politicians of all complexions are notorious for transporting supporters to rallies of all kinds. They offer inducements ranging from arrack to buriyani, sarees, tee-shirts and caps in party colours, transport and much more. Cheques are invariably cashed for patronage bestowed, including jobs for the boys and girls. MPs and local councilors are required to round-up cheer squads by the busload. So analysts tend to avoid equating crowds with votes.
We don’t know when the draft of the promised new constitution, already past the previously stated deadline, will be published. It is still in the hands of the president’s expert committee that has been doing its work mostly behind closed doors. This is different from what happened in 1972 when Parliament was made into a Constituent Assembly with all proceedings in public. President J.R. Jayewardene preferred a Parliamentary Select Committee approach. Whatever the new draft offers, we can be certain that it will avoid the need for a referendum which is the last thing any incumbent government anywhere would want. Constitutional experts have made clear that this can be easily done and that will certainly be the way the government will go. Whatever the question at any referendum, the answer will only say whether the voters are for or against the government. That is a risk nobody in power anywhere would ever take.
Both Presidents Chandrika Kumaratunga and Maithripala Sirisena reneged on solemn promises that they will abolish the executive presidency that had then become a hate object. We’re now seeing various contenders including Messrs. Sajith Premadasa, Patali Champika Ranawaka and even the JVP’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake eyeing the throne, the last perhaps with a longer term strategy of abolishing the office or its powers. Though Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, after abolishing the two-term limit on the presidency unsuccessfully sought a third term, he obviously cannot offer himself again. The family choice will have to be either the now-limping incumbent who says he’s got more time, Basil (will the new constitution permit the foreign citizen clause to remain or will he renounce like his brother?) or Namal who’s being groomed but for when is not clear. The incumbents will not want to abolish the executive presidency or remove its powers – as done under 19A and restored by 20A – through the new constitution. They are not under any pressure to do so.
Local elections seem to remain the government’s best option to demonstrate they are not as hated as some people think. No doubt it’s a calculated risk but present signals are that the government is willing to gamble. Basil Rajapaksa who masterminded the SLPP campaign the last time round, paving the way for the presidential election victory and a two third majority at the parliamentary election that followed, has already signaled which way the wind is blowing. His weda lakshayak (one hundred thousand projects) and rural roads policies are clearly intended to enthuse and enrich SLPP political activists. Local bodies are elected by a mix of first-past-the-post and proportional representation and this system seems to favour the SLPP as it did in 2018. With a splintered opposition, like what now exists, and next to no prospects of a common front approach against the rulers such as that which toppled Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015 anywhere in sight, SLPP strategists seem to calculate local elections now may be the way to go. This can happen in the next few months before the economy further worsens. So that may well be how the papadam will crumble.
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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