Connect with us

Editorial

Govt. in a bind

Published

on

Tuesday 12th April, 2022

Former President Maithripala Sirisena, of all people, has undertaken to bring order out of chaos; he is proffering advice to the government on how to resolve the present crises. He has presented a set of proposals to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, spelling out how his party, the SLFP, and the rebel SLPP MPs think the government should set about the task. Protesters out there in the streets say nasty things about President Rajapaksa, but nothing must be more humiliating to him than to be told by a failed predecessor how to do his job! Most of all, Sirisena wants Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to resign. This is an interesting development.

In October 2018, Sirisena, as the President, in a bid to settle political scores with the UNP, appointed Mahinda as Prime Minister unconstitutionally, and even sought to dissolve Parliament when they could not muster a working majority in the House. Sirisena fought on, despite public protests, until the Supreme Court declared his action unconstitutional. Today, the SLFP is asking Mahinda to step down as the Prime Minister although the government insists it has a parliamentary majority!

Contradictory as Sirisena’s policies may be, the fact remains that pressure is mounting on the entire government to resign, and since the President has refused to give in, on the grounds that he was duly elected by the people, and could be removed only through constitutionally stipulated means, it looks as though the PM were left with no alternative but to sacrifice his position if he is to assuage public anger.

Prime Minister Rajapaksa is in this predicament because he did not put his foot down at the right time. He sought to further the interests of his family at the expense of the country. It has now been revealed that Sri Lanka found itself in a similar economic crisis in 2009 during the war, under Mahinda’s presidency, but the Central Bank and the Finance Ministry were given a free hand to tackle it, and they straightened up the economy in such a way that the public hardly felt the ill-effects of the economic downturn. If PM Rajapaksa had allowed the aforesaid institutions to do what had to be done when the present economic crisis began manifesting itself, the country would not have been on the verge of bankruptcy with the people taking to the streets in a bid to topple the government. Instead, Mahinda took on board the wrong advice, let the grass grow under his feet, and, worse, chose to make his younger brother, Basil, happy by handing over the Finance Ministry to the latter. As an experienced political leader, he should have known better. His family, which he thought was his strength, has become his undoing; today, he has protesters at the gate, demanding his ouster. He addressed the nation yesterday, and pledged to tackle the crises, but it is doubtful whether the irate public will take his promises seriously.

The government is still working under the delusion that the ‘Avant-garde’ tactics will help stem the tide of public resentment. An attack on a group of anti-government protesters has been reported from Kurunegala. This is exactly how the previous Rajapaksa government sought to suppress dissent, but in vain. It deployed goon squads, which operated alongside the riot police to crush Opposition protests. It does not seem to have learnt from its blunders.

It is a huge mistake for the government to have launched a counterattack in the form of pro-SLPP demonstrations, which have already led to the ruling party supporters clashing with anti-government activists in some areas. Every political party has a right to stage peaceful demonstrations, but the course of action the government has adopted in a bid to neutralise dissent, instead of solving the problems that have driven the people to protest, will only provoke the public further, and worsen political instability, which will put paid to efforts being made to resuscitate the economy.

No government is equal to the task of suppressing people power, which is the political version of a tsunami, and the only way the beleaguered SLPP regime could try to avert disaster is to mend its ways and make a serious effort to de-escalate the conflict.



Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Editorial

Ensure safety of COPF Chairman

Published

on

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.

Continue Reading

Editorial

Dead man walking!

Published

on

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.

Continue Reading

Editorial

Modi Magic on the wane

Published

on

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.

Continue Reading

Trending