Editorial
Sanath Nishantha
The death on Thursday of State Minister Sanath Nishantha on the Katunayake expressway when his luxury sports utility vehicle (SUV) crashed headlong into the back of a container carrier in the early hours of the morning generated the predictable publicity in the evening news bulletins of the various television stations and Friday’s newspapers.
What caused the accident which killed Nishantha and his police security guard and injured his driver has not been definitively revealed as this is being written. There was a later report that the driver who had not been seriously hurt has been arrested and a statement recorded. He had allegedly been driving at a very high speed when the crash occurred. This raises questions on police inaction over dangerously driven VIP vehicles.
Nishantha apparently had attended two weddings in Kurunegala and Chilaw and was on his way back to his official residence in Colombo when the accident happened. His family had attended the function at Kurunegala while he had gone without them to Chilaw. Thursday evening’s television news provided extensive coverage of the accident including images of the clearing of the wreckage from the scene and condolence visits by President Ranil Wickremesinghe and former President Mahinda Rajapaksa among others to Nishantha’s Colombo residence.
Rajapaksa spoke glowingly of the late state minister saying his death was a great loss to the party and to the nation. Readers may remember that it was Nishantha who settled an unpaid electricity bill incurred on the occasion of Namal Rajapaksa’s wedding.
The body lay at a funeral parlour in the city prior to their removal for interment at Aratchikatuwa, the home base of the Puttalam district parliamentarian who was serving his second term in the legislature. He had previously served as a provincial councilor and been a member of a local body. Many members of the ruling party and others paid their respects. The late Nishantha, incidentally, was one of the many ruling party politicians whose homes/offices were attacked and destroyed after a mob from ‘Temple Trees’ set upon the Aragalaya protesters on Galle Face.
It has been alleged that he was one of the leaders of this attack. His political history is replete with many violent incidents and various social media references to his demise were less that complimentary. This angered some of his political colleagues prompting them to say such references were proof of the need to have some controls over social media.
On the flip side were other points of view with a former member of the Human Rights Commission, Ambika Sathkunanathan, taking to Instagram to claim many connections between public reaction to the politician’s death (such as cheering, references to karma etc.) and impunity, lack of respect for the rule of law and the inability of people to obtain redress for abuse of power and rights violations.
“In societies where the state and politicians are predators and public institutions do not function to serve the public, when someone who has abused power, used violence and acted with impunity suffers a loss or is killed, people see that as punishment and/or justice,” she said. Some readers would remember there was lighting of firecrackers celebrating President Premadasa’s assassination, a clear indication of certain social values that persist in this country.
The vacancy in the legislature caused by the death of the state minister will not go to the Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) but to Wimal Weerawansa’s breakaway group which contested the last parliamentary election under the SLPP banner. This is on account of the number of preferential votes polled by Jagath Priyankara who topped the preference vote count of unelected candidates in the Puttalam district.
ITAK/TNA
Last week’s election of a new leader of the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) which leads the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), widely regarded as the most formidable of the Tamil political formations, saw the defeat of front runner Mathiaparanam Abraham Sumanthiran, PC, MP, by fellow Jaffna district parliamentarian T. Shritharan who soon after his victory visited the LTTE cemetery triggering unease about a possible return to Tamil extremism.
Although what was originally slated to be a three-cornered contest, eventually became a battle between Shritharan and Sumanthiran and the finish was not even close with the former winning comfortably. The third candidate who withdrew fom the race threw his weight behind the winner whose supporters say had the backing of a formidable section of the Tamil diaspora.
Sumathiran, an accomplished civil, constitutional and human rights lawyer, first entered the legislature through the National List of his party but was later able to secure election from the Jaffna district. Demonstrating considerable political and debating skills, he is among the outstanding frontbenchers of the incumbent legislature. Academic Dayan Jayatilleka who is a respected political analyst, said in a column last week that he had hoped that Sumanthiran, “a sophisticated post-war parliamentarian” he was rooting for, would have won the race – “but that’s democracy and the autonomous choice of a community.”
The new leadership of the TNA in an election year assumes special importance. President Ranil Wickremesinghe has been working towards achieving minority support for his candidature and has established contact with the diaspora. When President JR Jayewardene first stood for election as president, Mr. Kumar Ponnabalam also ran finishing fourth behind Hector Kobbekaduwa and Rohana Wijeweera but ahead of Dr. Colvin, R. de Silva. Kobbekaduwa won a considerable number of Jaffna votes attributed to the high prices that onions and chillies commanded during Mrs. Bandaranaike’s United Front government when scarcities were endemic.
Whether there would be a Tamil candidate this time round or whether the Tamil parties would back a main contender is yet an open question. The JVP is throwing considerable effort to organize itself in the North and East. These are yet early days and how events will play out remains to be seen.
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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