Failed leaders as preachers

Wednesday 25th October, 2023

The police investigating a recent clash between State Minister Diana Gamage and SJB MPs Sujith Sanjaya Perera and Rohana Bandara, near the parliamentary chamber, have reportedly sought Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena’s views on some legal aspects of their probe, which is likely to drag on until the cows come home.

Speaker Abeywardena has appointed a five-member committee to probe the brawl at issue. SJB MP Gamage, who switched her allegiance to the government and secured a ministerial post, claims that she suffered assault at the hands of the two male MPs, who have denied her allegation; they insist that they were the victims.

A video of Friday’s incident is available on the Internet, and if it is anything to go by, all three MPs must be ashamed of themselves. However, chances are that nothing will come of the ongoing probes, and the issue will fizzle out with the passage of time. There have been far worse incidents in the House over the years, but the culprits have got off scot-free, and some of them are in the current Parliament, doing more of what they did under previous governments.

Friday’s brawl has prompted the Cabinet of Ministers to take steps to introduce a code of conduct for the MPs, we are told. A draft bill to that effect is to be prepared expeditiously in consultation with the Speaker and the leaders of the political parties represented in Parliament. This is a welcome move, but the government should not try to mislead the public into believing that Parliament has come to be plagued with indiscipline and violent clashes because there is no code of conduct for the MPs.

There is arguably no need for a code of conduct to ensure that the MPs stop misbehaving in the House and elsewhere, as we argued in a previous comment. The current Parliament is not without decent members who deserve praise for their exemplary conduct; they act with the utmost decorum and carry out their legislative duties and functions conscientiously. Why can’t others be made to emulate them? This is the question that the political party leaders who lament the deterioration of parliamentary standards should ask themselves.

The blame for the scourge of indiscipline in Parliament should go to the leaders of the political parties that the misbehaving MPs belong to. We never see the party leaders make any serious effort to rein in their unruly MPs during stormy parliamentary sessions.

Whenever brawls erupt in Parliament, the so-called leaders either look on, or slip away from the chamber, letting their MPs throw the House into turmoil. No wonder the MPs are following Rafferty’s rules when they try to counter dissenting views. The Speaker alone cannot control the aggressive MPs who are no respecters of the Chair and the Mace. There have been instances where some MPs even tried to assault the Speaker.

The self-righteous political leaders never miss an opportunity to take the moral high ground and pontificate to others on the virtues of democracy and non-violence, but they have no qualms about nominating unruly characters to contest elections, and turning a blind eye to the shameful conduct of their MPs in Parliament.

True, the public should also be blamed for being swayed by factors such as kinship, caste, ‘election bribes’, patronage, etc., and electing misfits at the expense of decent candidates, only a few of whom are returned. But if the political parties care to sift prospective candidates properly ahead of elections and handpick only the decent men and women among them, Parliament will be a much better place whoever gets elected.

How advisable is it to entrust a bunch of political leaders who have no control over the members of their own parties with the task of governing the country?

Let the failed political leaders be urged to turn the searchlight inwards before blaming others for what has befallen the national legislature. They can easily break the back of indiscipline in the House if they take action to ensure that all their MPs respect the rule of law.