Pains of Parliamentary Culture

Thirteen may be considered an unlucky number by many. But not for Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, just now. He has 13 Cabinet Ministers. It is a powwow for the new players in government, who are swinging their tails in support of President Gotabaya.It was well known that the SLFP would be in this Gota-Ranil team. Nimal Siripala de Silva continued his record of unproductive presence in Cabinets of Ministers. Others from the SLFP too have questionable records of service. They showed the SLFP’s desire to be a part of mis-governance, under a non-elected Prime Minister. Hanging on to elephant Ranil’s tail.

But there must be some pain in the SJB ranks as we see Harin Fernando and Manusha Nanayakkara in the new Cabinet ranks of the Gota-Ranil team. They were among the most active and well-informed MPs of the SJB ranks in Parliament. Ranil will certainly have new strength with their presence in the Cabinet, but how will they recall their recent vocal support for the Gota Go Home activists at Galle Face?

What can these two SJB activists think of being ministers in a Cabinet led by the world’s only unelected Prime Minister in a democracy built on the votes of the people?

Is the structure of this new slowly expanding Cabinet, the stuff of Ranil W’s call for a change in our parliamentary culture? He said so after his own government ranks saw the defeat of the woman SJP MP – Rohini Kaviratne, by the SLPP’s Ajith Rajapaksa – who has said he does to belong to the Medmulana Rajapaksa clan. What Ranil failed was in preventing Basil Rajapaksa in ensuring the defeat of a woman MP to be a Deputy Speaker in a Parliament of 74 years. Parliamentary culture in Sri Lanka certainly needs much change as we see a continuing departure from the interests of the people and society, and more interests in the benefits to MPs. How much of the recent discussions in Parliament have been about the goon attacks on peaceful protesters near Temple Trees and Galle Face?

The attacks on the homes and properties of many MPs, after the Temple Trees initiated attack on peaceful and democratic protesters on 09 May are certainly regrettable and deserve condemnation. But the present parliamentary culture is certainly giving much more importance to this violence than to the months of hardship that the people of this country have been facing with the shortage of food, fuel and medicines, and the continuously rising cost of living to the people.It is this parliamentary culture that arranged for the issuance of fuel to the luxury vehicles of MPs from a Police Filling Station, while millions of vehicle owners – cars, buses, three-wheels, motorcycles – were painfully waiting for fuel?

The Parliamentary system, especially after 1997 and the JRJ Presidency, has been moving away from the process of social decency, to that of a crooked parliamentary supremacy. Some MPs who have felt the pains of today’s realities are now calling for lunch packets at market prices, and not the special delights at the parliamentary restaurant. It is good to know that MPs can also feel the taste of food that ordinary people consume!

Do the people of this country have to give any vehicles to MPs for travelling, whether to Parliament or elsewhere? Can’t they travel by bus or train, taxis and even three-wheelers? Where is the travel reality of the people who voted for them? Why should luxury vehicles be given to them; constantly painful to the people? Let’s us just member how very senior MPs in the past came to parliament from Galle, Matara, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Jaffna and elsewhere by public transport, and how Mr. W. Dahanayake left Temple Trees by public bus, after his defeat from the position of PM.Do the MPs of Sri Lanka have special health needs that require treatment in Singapore and other global centers away from the health services in this country that serve the people, even with much hardship?

The current realities that have come to light from the actions of the youth at Galle Face, and many other places in the country, have raised issues of more importance than parliamentary culture alone. But, the very crooked culture that prevails in our parliamentary system – a culture that is against a woman Deputy Speaker, and has only 12 women MPs in a 225 member House, while women are 52% of the population, needs major changes.What we need are changes that will restore and build a good democracy, as the fighters for independence, and the early leaders and activists in the parliamentary process sought until the declines from the 1950s and much more after 1977.The call for a change in parliamentary culture has come from a Prime Minister who has made a gross mockery of the democratic process – in the current Gota-Ranil alliance of Crooked Politics. The mood and activity of the people that have seen much of the Rajapaksa Rajavasala be pushed away from power, must certainly continue till a true democracy is fully restored.This will certainly be very painful, as the people suffer from so much want in food, fuel, medicines and honest services, and a Parliament that is largely removed from the realities of good governance. Let’s suffer these pains for many more months, and hopefully not years!