Numbers, power and brains

Wednesday 23rd September, 2020

The SLPP juggernaut is bearing down on democracy. The 20th Amendment (20A) Bill was presented to Parliament, yesterday, amidst protests from the Opposition benches. The government has 150 MPs on its side, and is confident that they will vote for the Bill en bloc. Some of them are disgruntled because they have been left out of the Cabinet but they are likely to be appointed ministers when the Bill is passed and the Cabinet expanded.

The Old Fox would guffaw in his grave if he could see those who once condemned his Constitution and called him a dictator going all out to enhance the powers of the executive presidency; 20A would make him green with envy. What a political dog and pony show they put on, under UNP governments (1978-1994), to have the masses believe that the executive presidency was a scourge that had to be removed forthwith! They even undertook to abolish it, contested presidential elections and obtained mandates for doing that, but they reneged on their pledges. Most of the protesting SJB MPs were ardent supporters of the executive presidency while UNP leaders were wielding it and abusing its powers. There has been a role reversal.

Following the 2015 regime change, many thought that the former leaders, who later formed the SLPP, had learnt from their blunders. It looked as if the collective pratfall they suffered had had the desired impact on them, and they had realised the need to act with restraint, upholding democratic values. But, today, they are practising the very obverse of what they preached during their Opposition days. Power has gone to their heads. Those who were intoxicated with power while in the yahapalana government have taken up the cudgels for the people’s democratic rights. This is why we keep saying, ‘Mole thiyanakota bale ne, bale thiyanakota mole ne’—‘when one has brains one has no power’, and when one has power one has no brains.

Let the protesting Opposition MPs be told that they, too, are guilty of having raped democracy. They, as members of the yahapalana government, unflinchingly steamrollered bad Bills through. The Provincial Council Elections (Amendment) Bill of 2017 is a case in point. They stuffed it with sections sans judicial sanction, at the committee stage, to postpone the PC polls indefinitely and secured its passage. It is their arrogance and blunders that enabled the SLPP to win a two-thirds majority at the last general election hands down. Their ugly past and hypocrisy will make it difficult for them to drum up public support for their campaign against 20A, as we argued in a previous comment.

The Executive President, directly elected by the people, should have enough powers to carry out his duties and functions, but the sky is not the limit. He should be able to hold the Defence portfolio as he is responsible for safeguarding national security. The 19th Amendment reduced the Executive President to a virtual figurehead so that the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe could reign supreme. The 20A seeks to make the President extremely powerful so that the PM will be powerless again. Both these extremes must be avoided and a via media found. One can only hope that the government will listen to reason and agree to amend the Bill.

There is much more to democracy than parliamentary majorities. If all laws ratified with two-thirds majorities are to be considered legitimate and acceptable, then one cannot find fault with the 1978 Constitution, which was passed with a five-sixth majority in the House; similarly, the SLPP leaders should stop complaining about 19A, which all MPs save one voted for in 2015.

Meanwhile, one may recall that the Enabling Act (1933), which paved the way for Hitler’s dictatorship, was also backed by the German lawmakers overwhelmingly. Only the Chairman of the Social Democrats, Otto Wels, had the courage to oppose that draconian law. If only others had emulated him.