Editorial
The ayes had it
The first budget proper of the Ranil Wickremesinghe presidency was concluded on Thursday with the third reading vote comfortably passed. So also the second reading. This was widely predicted and there were no surprises at voting time. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and some of the other northern MPs absented themselves during the vote as they had earlier assured they would while former Justice CV Wigneswaran abstained as he had done on the second reading. This reflected Tamil expectations of something tangible coming out of the president’s promised effort to take steps to finally resolve what has been called the Tamil National Question – a matter outstanding in the national agenda from 1956 if not earlier.
President Wickremesinghe, wearing the finance minister’s hat as two of his predecessors, Presidents Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa did before him, was a frequent presence in parliament during the budget debate, much more so than either CBK or MR had been when they were similarly placed. Wickremesinghe clearly is a parliamentary president who, given his history of an unbroken presence in the House from 1977 to August 2020 when he lost his seat, obviously enjoys its hurly burly. This was clearly demonstrated in the just concluded budget debate where he made it a point to be in the chamber or otherwise be physically present in his parliament office to exercise his constitutional right to participate or intervene in the proceedings of the legislature.
It has been widely speculated that Wickremesinghe, who was elected the ninth president of this country by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) on July 20 this year to serve out Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s balance term, has been under considerable pressure to expand his present 20-member cabinet. Such pressure is believed to have increased with the return to the country of Basil Rajapaksa credited to be the puppeteer pulling the SLPP strings. RW of course is very well aware of the public hatred of politicians, particularly those very visible during the Rajapaksa Raj demonstrating affluence beyond their known means. The Rajapaksas were kept out in the first round of cabinet making. But eldest brother Chamal’s son was one among the new state ministers. MR’s ambitions for Namal is a given. But will the president cave into a demand that Mahinda’s son returns to cabinet office? Is he strong enough to resist that if push comes to shove?
Many have beens have been knocking on the cabinet door anxious to remount their previous pedestals. Wickremesinghe who would have far preferred to have a lean and mean cabinet, particularly at this time when many sacrifices are demanded of the common man, braved unpopularity to appoint a clutch of non-cabinet state ministers last September after the cabinet appointments in July. This was under SLPP pressure but several seniors of that party and other claimants are still out in the cold. Following the final budget vote on Thursday, parliament watchers have been wondering whether there were signals from the voting that some cabinet and state ministry appointments are due shortly. It was noted that a Tamil Progressive Alliance MP abstained courting disciplinary action by his party. Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle and Duminda Dissanayake voted in favour provoking speculation that they may return to office.
The outcome of the voting obviously signals that there is no political instability in the country that the opposition wishfully hopes for. The steam generated by the aragalaya, as claimed by the government during the budget debate, has now died down to a large extent. There are no kilometers long petrol/diesel queues, cooking gas is freely available although the recent price reduction has been reversed, milk powder is available though at a largely unaffordable price that has depressed demand, and the power cuts are tolerable thanks to the rain gods. State Minister of Finance Ranjith Siyambalapitiya did try to credit the present administration for these favourable developments during the closing stages of the budget debate. But as pointed out by JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the fact that we have stopped repaying our foreign debt some months ago and are not servicing interest has eased pressure on the critical foreign exchange problem and enabled what appears to be some flexibility.
State Minister Diana Gamage, whose parliamentary seat is at risk if ongoing investigations establish that she is a British citizen made some waves during the concluding stages of the budget as our front page news story reports today. Gamage who wants to grow ganja commercially and is advocating a night economy in the interests of the tourism industry has threatened the SJB in Parliament saying “If I go down, you go down with me.” The state minister who claims that the Samagi Jana Balavegaya belongs to her is now on record in Hansard saying that this party would be ‘null and void’ if she is deemed to be a foreign citizen. There is no doubt that the hurriedly cobbled SJB took over a party already recognized and registered with the Elections Commission to run at the last general election in August 2020. Gamage was, of course, rewarded for this with an SJB national list seat in the incumbent parliament.
While she has now joined the government and taken office as a state minister for which she has been pilloried not so long ago, what direction the whole business will take remains to be seen. The SJB wants to kick her out of the party she says belongs to her. Such expulsion will cost her national list seat. She, like Geetha Kumarasinghe before her, will also lose her seat if it is determined that she held the citizenship of another country when nominations for the last parliamentary election was received. But these are still early days. A lot of ground will have to be covered in Hultsdorp before there’s finality. Given the laws delays, whether this will happen before the next election is anybody’s guess.
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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