Editorial
No general election first
What President Ranil Wickremesinghe had told his ministers at their meeting last week, according to what spokesman Bandula Gunawardane told the post-cabinet news briefing, as well as other published reports, is that he does not intend dissolving the incumbent parliament before the upcoming presidential election is concluded. This is a clear signal that he is not going to fall in with SLPP founder and strategist Basil Rajapaksa’s demand that a parliamentary election be first held before the presidential contest later this year. While it is not known whether a parliamentary election first is a Rajapaksa demand with the whole family united behind it or whether it’s purely a BR initiative, as it is not likely that Basil is breaking ranks with the family.
But the president’s stance has not altogether ruled out a general election in the short term. If Basil Rajapaksa still calls the shots among the MPs elected last time around on the SLPP ticket, he should be able to muster the 113 votes necessary to compel the dissolution of parliament and a general election thereafter. All that will take, according to the constitution, is a simple majority of the 225-member legislature. But the SLPP is no longer what it was when it won a two thirds majority at the last general election in August 2020. Large chunks of the party have peeled off the parent since the araglaya forced out both President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa from office. The breakaways have their own agenda and will certainly not obey an SLPP or BR whip.
Quite apart from that, there are many sitting MPs who have not yet completed five years of parliamentary service which would entitle them and their widows to a lifetime pension. So there are very good reasons why they will not support an early dissolution before the due date in August 2025. While President Wickremesinghe has still not declared his own candidature for whatever reason, his intimates have made very clear that he will be a runner. Much of what is happening in the country right now such as the 10 kilos of rice monthly handout to the poor, the school meal, the Rs. 1,700 daily wage for plantation workers, and the president’s statements in Jaffna last week on upgrading the Jaffna hospital and the medical faculty of the Jaffna University and much more are clear pointers to pre-poll vote gathering now evident.
The SLPP has said they are running a candidate but not said that it will be Wickremesinghe whom they first appointed prime minister, replacing MR, and then elected president to complete GR’s balance term. Nor has the party named any other candidate. RW too will not run under the elephant or lotus bud symbol as he’s seeking a broader alliance. A recent unconfirmed report said that Namal Rajapaksa had phoned the president to say he will be running for president. It said that Wickremesinghe had wished Namal, whose father not long ago said had “more time,” good luck. Billionaire businessman Dhammika Perera is known to be waiting in the wings hoping for the SLPP ticket. The presidential ambitions of Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, chairman of the SJB, who’s recently been distanced from Sajith Premadasa, have also resurfaced.
Only two runners, Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake have declared their candidature until now. Wickremesinghe has show in many ways, short of actual declaration, that he’s a contender. Calculations of many politicians presently in parliament is focused on how best to ensure their re-election – whom to back in the presidential race, which party’s ticket will best serve their personal interest among other factors. No doubt the picture will further clarify in coming weeks when Wickremesinghe plays his hand and the Elections Commission sets a polling date for the presidential election. Until then it is a matter of ‘wait and see’ for the electorate.
Commemorating the war dead
Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard was in Sri Lanka last week in connection with the commemoration of the end of the country’s near 30-year long civil war. Predictably, her visit to the Mullivaikkal memorial site commemorating the war dead ruffled many feathers. She met President Wickremesinghe the day she arrived here and was assured the government was not interfering with memorial events. This was true as far as the Mullivaikkal was concerned although the presence of surveillance personnel in civvies was noted. But elsewhere, including in the Batticalloa campus of the Eastern University, such events were not permitted. This year, as in the past, there were events like serving kanji on the streets and even on the Wellawatte beach, some resisted by police armed with court orders, and others permitted.
The Federation of National Organizations (FNO), led by Dr. Gunadasa Amarasekera, publicly found fault with former presidents Mahinda and Gotabaya Rajapaksa as well as the SLPP for turning a blind eye to Callamard’s visit, calling it a “betrayal” of the war winning armed forces. Among the signatories to the FNO statement were two sitting MPs, Rear Admiral (Retd.) Sarath Weerasekera who was elected on the SLPP ticket and Gevindu Cumaratunga who entered parliament on the SLPP national list. Several several former senior military officers too signed this statement. It is debatable whether this subject 15 years later generates the same passion it did during wartime.
The anniversary of the end or the war and the connected events have been controversial over a long period of time. There are those who argue strongly that the Sri Lankan state had not interfered with JVP organized commemorative events for Rohana Wijeweera but had adopted a different stance over such events organized by Tamils. While the name Prabhakaran remains a dirty word in Sri Lanka, he is memorialized in countries with a strong diaspora presence like Canada in what is perceived as ‘vote bank politics.’ It must be acknowledged that even some LTTE combatants who died in the fighting were child soldiers forcibly conscripted by the Tigers. Is it fair then to deprive their families of publicly remembering them?
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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