Editorial
Post-budget state of play
The second reading of the Budget 2023 was comfortably passed last week with President Ranil Wickremesinghe strongly affirming that he will not permit another aragalaya and will not hesitate to use armed services muscle and, if needed, a State of Emergency to prevent it. Not surprisingly, it was thrown at his face that he would today not be President, and in that capacity, Head of State and Head of Government, but for the aragalaya. This is a fact of life that he cannot, and did not attempt to refute. But he did say that he did not ask for the job which, we are certain, is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It was undoubtedly thrust upon him and he, unlike Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, did not first drop the catch and thereafter conditionally agree to accept the position of prime minister after Mahinda Rajapaksa was forced out of office. He accepted it presumably unconditionally.
Premadasa laid down the condition that a time frame for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to relinquish office must be laid if he were to agree to be prime minister. And that too after Wickremesinghe, whose UNP was decimated to zero elected seats with him losing his own seat at the UNPs Colombo Central fortress. Nobody can quibble that RW holds an unconstitutional office. He was properly and constitutionally elected president by a comfortable majority to serve GR’s balance term after the former president fled the country and tendered his resignation from Singapore while Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was acting as president. RW was elected president by the Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP), a section of which party backed Dullas Alahapperuma as the common – barring the NPP/JVP – opposition candidate. Wickremesinghe was the Rajapaksa nominee for president earning for himself the sneering sobriquet of Ranil Rajapaksa. Thus he appears for all purposes the captive president of the SLPP.
As we have said before in this space, he will remain dependent on the pohottuwa until he is constitutionally enabled to dissolve parliament after February next year. But he formally went on record last week declaring that he will not dissolve parliament until the economy is stabilized. When that will happen is to all intents and purposes is anybody’s guess. Wickremesinghe, who our popular columnist Rajan Philips who returns to this page after a short absence today says was probably the first finance minister after Ronnie de Mel to write his own budget speech, did not even hint when the IMF bail out can be expected. Various straws are being floated in the wind but the earliest possible date seems to be March next year. Although the cost of living has hit unbearable heights with a sizable proportion of the population being compelled to forego one daily meal, the budget offered no tangible respite beyond repetition of long-held promises of social security cushions to the most vulnerable.
The last several days has seen the return to the country of former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa back from the U.S. whose citizenship he’s clinging on to unlike brother Gotabaya who gave it up to run for president. Basil was not long ago prevented, at the height of the aragalaya, from leaving the country but returned last week to a well publicized welcome at the VVIP lounge of the Bandaranaike International Airport. It has been widely perceived that BR pulls the strings that manipulate the SLPP. That view was enhanced by those who crowded the lounge to sycophantically receive him. They included the controversial presence of the chairman and a member of the National Police Commission (NPC). Former IGP Chandra Fernando who heads the NPC ineffectively pleaded his impartiality following the exposure of his airport presence with Basil’s cheer squad. Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardene said a new NPC was being shortly appointed, implying that the rotten eggs in the existing body were soon being replaced.
With the Rajapaksas are returning to the national picture, the state-controlled Daily News on Friday front paged a photo of President Wickremesinghe with Mahinda and Shiranthi Rajapaksa at a DA Rajapaksa commemorative event in Colombo. There was a public celebration of MR’s 77th birthday both at the Abhayarama temple in Narahenpita, once the SLPP political headquarters, and at Tangalle where a jayapiritha reportedly attended by 1,000 monks had been organized. One uncontradicted report which we cannot confirm said that hefty contributions running from Rs. 50,000 to 100,000 each was collected from ministers, state ministers and corporation heads to fund this event. In a budget speech MR admitted making mistakes but did not specify what they were. Questions on whether these include the chemical fertilizer and pesticide bans, vanity projects bearing his name as well as Colombo’s Lotus Tower massively displaying the pohottuwa’s election symbol remain hanging in the air.
Perhaps President Wickremesinghe awaited the conclusion of the 2023 budget to expand his cabinet. There have been reports that he’s under pressure to do so and some observers have read ministerial ambitions among those who supported the budget. The voting figures clearly indicate the presence of Rajapaksa political muscle but whether this will presage, for instance, the return of Namal Rajapaksa to the cabinet only time will tell. The president’s focus would and obviously must be more on economic than political issues. While the critical situation that prevailed earlier this year with miles long petrol and gas queues are no longer present, the cost of living remains skyhigh. The budget offered no hope that this would change. Whether the ‘no dissolution before economic stability is restored’ declaration applies to any election whatever remains to be seen. That question will be answered by whether or not local authority elections will be held as scheduled by March 2023. That various machinations are afoot to delay these polls is very well known.
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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