Editorial
Sirisena wakes up from hibernation
Former President Maithripala Sirisena emerged a few days ago from a long hibernation, interrupted only by his participation in the last parliamentary election to retain his long-held Polonnaruwa district seat. He recently awoke from his slumber sharing a platform with Prime Ministers Narendra Modi of India and Yoshide Suga of Japan at an international symposium on Shared Values and Democracy in Asia organized by the New Delhi-based Vivekananda International Foundation. The event was necessarily held under virtual technology in these Covid-wracked times, and our former president, who chose not to ride gracefully into the sunset at the end of the presidential term, was no doubt flattered to receive the invitation to participate in a prestigious international event. He became president as the common opposition candidate under “fortuitous circumstances,” if we may borrow the expression used by Mr. W. Dahanayaka, the veteran politician of yesteryear, on attaining the prime ministry after Mr. S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike’s assassination.
So much for the background of Sirisena, who retains the leadership of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) he deserted in 2014, to run for president the following year. His speech at the Vivekananda symposium received considerable publicity, both here and abroad. Ironically, its theme was a concept to which politicians worldwide pay lip service, but is sadly something that is commonly discarded upon attaining office. Sirisena is no exception to this actuality and the people of Sri Lanka who voted him into power on high expectations have not forgotten what happened in October 2018 even if the former president has let that sorry episode slip out of his memory. If we may remind him, that was when he committed the impeachable offence of dismissing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his government and appointing Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa, the man he defeated in 2015, as the new prime minister. Rajapaksa, at Sirisena’s invitation, formed an illegal short-lived government despite being a minority in the legislature and Sirisena, the prime mover of those machinations, was forced to eat humble pie by a unanimous decision of the country’s highest court.
At the start of his speech into which he must have had considerable input, but was surely ghost-written
as far as the English version he read out was concerned, Sirisena quoted from the familiar Pali stanza which appears at the end of the Pirit Pota. Certainly Raja bhavatu dhammiko was not what happened in October 2018; nor Yahapalana post-2015. It may be correctly said that the then prime minister asked for what was done to him by the man whose United National Party anointed as president in 2015. The evocative Sinhala idiom illagena parippu kewa says it all. Sri Lanka’s political history vividly demonstrated in the past, certainly up to the last election when the GOP was reduced to zero, that a common opposition is a sine qua non to topple a powerful government in this country. There is no need to labour the fact that Maithripala Sirisena would not have been elected president in 2015 but for the UNP support of his candidature. Even if 1956 when Mr. Bandaranaike’s SLFP-led Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) scored a landslide victory, the MEP had a no-contest agreement with the two old left parties, the LSSP and CP, then a formidable presence in the country’s political firmament. The elections of March and July 1960 best illustrate this point. The UNP led by Mr. Dudley Senanayake won in March and formed a minority government which was defeated in the very first Throne Speech presented to Parliament.
Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake recommended dissolution of Parliament and the calling of a new general election to Sir. Oliver Goonatillake, the Governor-General in the then prevailing order. The arithmetic of the March 1960 electoral result clearly showed that many seats the UNP carried there would have been lost if the anti-UNP vote was not divided between the SLFP and the left parties. It is commonly said that it was the entry into politics of Mrs. Sirima Bandaranaike, widely described as the “weeping widow” during that campaign, that made the difference. She replaced Mr. C.P. de Silva as the leader of the SLFP and prime minister-designate. Mrs. Bandaranaike, then not even a Member of the House of Representatives (she chose not to run at that election), became the world’s first woman prime minister as a member of the then Senate. It was the ‘No Contest’ Pact between the SLFP and the old left parties that benefited both sides that enabled the SLFP victory. The blue party was not the sole beneficiary; the reds too won more seats than they otherwise would have. The SLFP having enough seats to form a government of its own did not invite its electoral allies to join the new administration and the LSSP and CP joined the UNP in the opposition.
We return to Maithripala Sirisena now that we are done with the short capsule of post-Independence political history. Predictably Sirisena outlined at the symposium some of the achievement of his tenure including the shedding of certain presidential powers and the Right to Information Act. Some of the presidential powers removed by the 19th Amendment have been restored by the 20th recently enacted. Sirisena voted in its favour although he boasts of trimming presidential power in his day. He also supported the 18th Amendment which abolished the presidential term limit but did not in any way seek to abolish the presidency which all holders of that office, with the exceptions of Presidents J.R. Jayewardene and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, pledged to do. All of them, Sirisena included, welshed on that promise. Let us not deny him his moment in the limelight following the end of his glory days. But let us not forget the contradictions of his actions as president and the virtues he preached at the symposium.
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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