Editorial
The games they play
With the Elections Commission now on formal record that the forthcoming presidential election must be held on a date between Sept. 17 and Oct. 16, 2024, the attention of both the media and the electorate will inevitably become more focused on the upcoming contest. While incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is serving former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s balance term which ends on Nov. 19, has not yet declared his own candidature, his intimates have positively stated that he is a runner.
Much that is happening in the political space right now are pointers in that direction. The common perception at this point of time is that the three principal contenders will be Wickremesinghe, who is trying to cobble together a broad alliance to back him and is ulikely to run under UNP colours, Sajith Premadasa of the SJB and Anura Kumara Dissanayake to the NPP/JVP.
The ruling Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has remained remarkably shy of saying whether they are backing Wickremesinghe, who GR first appointed prime minister and SLPP then elected to serve GR’s balance term, or whether they have any other candidate in mind. Though MR has said that son Namal has “more time,” the dynastic ambitions of the Rajapaksas are no secret and Namal has not ruled himself out of the running. Other functionaries of the purple sataka (originally kurakkan) brigade often say they will reveal their candidate at the “right time.”
Billionaire businessman Dhammika Perera, who entered parliament taking Basil Rajapsksa’s national list seat and briefly served as GR’s Minister of Investment Promotion in June-July 2022 also harbors presidential ambitions. He has barely opened his mouth in parliament since his appointment to the legislature but recently made public appearances in the SLPP May Day rally and later at the opening of that partyt’s election office at Nelun Mawatha to which party organizers had been summoned. On both occasions he was clad in his trademark blue suit and red tie, looking quite the puduma satha among the political hoi polloi present at the events. Perera also appeared at one of his own DP Education events at the Nelun Pokuna theatre alongside both MR and RW. The presence of Wickremesinghe at a Dhammika Perera show was a rare occurrence.
As Dr. Nihal Jayawickrema, the respected lawyer and academic, wrote in this newspaper last Sunday, the constitution is very clear on when a presidential election must be held. As such he expressed puzzlement on why a widely viewed television news channel persisted with the refrain “When’s the election?” However that may be, the Elections Commission either on its own initiative or for some other reason like media inquiries, made a formal announcement of the period during which the presidential election must be held stopping short of naming a day. Observers point out that the Commission had stated the obvious despite not being under any obligation to do so.
One possible reason for this could be Mr. Basil Rajapaksa’s continuing pressure on the president to call a general election before a presidential contest. It is very well known that the constitution enables the president to dissolve an incumbent parliament two and a half years after its election. Given that the sitting legislature was elected in August 2020, and that time period has now elapsed, Wickremesinghe, if he wishes, can dissolve parliament and an election must be held thereafter. But he has been resisting the SLPP demand for an early parliamentary election.
It is fairly clear why Basil Rajapaksa, the founder of the SLPP wishes to have a parliamentary election before a presidential race. If whatever horse the SLPP backs, be it Wickremesinghe or any other, his/her defeat will cost votes at the parliamentary election due by August 2025. Of course any parliamentary election in the short term is possible not only by the grace and favor of the president but also by law. A resolution passed with a simple majority in the 225-member legislature any time now, that is with 113 votes, will compel an election.
The SLPP at present commands that majority. But the current picture is that a number of its MPs do not favor an early parliamentary election for various reasons. Among these is that first timers in the legislature will not qualify for a pension if they have not completed five years of parliamentary service. Also, there are those MPs who doubt their own re-election prospects and would prefer to serve the full term in the incumbent legislature rather than face a premature poll. So whatever Basil Rajapaksa’s wishes and calculations are, the required numbers will not be possible without the backing of sections of the opposition. That is unlikely to be forthcoming.
Apart from the three main contender identified earlier, there are other hopefuls who will throw their hats into the ring as demonstrated in previous presidential elections. Also, many ‘dummy’ candidates are usually run by serious contenders looking for their candidate privileges. Various formations are taking place at present, hints and speculation abound and there will be more to follow between now and the actual polling date which is likely to be announced some time in July.
While aspirants abound, most of them will do as badly as similar runners for the presidency have done in the past. But all kinds of games including some comedies are afoot and the country must await further developments in the not too distant future.
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.
