Editorial
Welcome to the political circus
The currently ongoing project of the Rajapaksas, banished from office only a few moths ago but now crawling out of the woodwork, is a clear demonstration that anything is possible in this land like no other. We give all credit to President Ranil Wickremesinghe for dragging his feet on making more cabinet appointments despite the pressure to do so. RW is too well aware of public opinion on that score to rush into anything like that especially at this time when all kinds of straws, like bringing Namal baba back into the cabinet, have already been thrown in the wind.
Chief Opposition Whip Lakshman Kiriella told parliament on Thursday that Mahinda Rajapaksa is now on a comeback trail. He reminded former speaker and elder brother Chamal Rajapaksa of his earlier public comment, during the height of the Aragalaya, that his malli had misjudged the time at which he should have relinquished power. Kiriella added that such advice should be retendered. Many will agree that the game MR is playing now is not intended to win anything for himself but in the interest of the dynastic succession of his son, Namal Rajapaksa. However that be, the way the papadam crumbles will be played out down the road in the months to come.
Most would be astonished at Rajapaksa resilience and Rajapaksa brass. Who could have imagined in their wildest imagination that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, no doubt seeking US residence having renounced citizenship to run for president, would be back home as quickly as he did to the comforts bestowed on ex-presidents by Sri Lanka’s impoverished taxpayers? True there is no Mahinda sulanga today such as that created by the likes of Wimal Weerawansa, Udaya Gammanpila and many others when crowds streamed to Carlton House at Tangalle where a stunningly defeated ex-president held court. Many of those who fanned that wind (or gale, if we may say so) have now broken ranks, but that is another story. Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe must take the blame for the failure to nail the crooks when they were out of office. Sri Lanka’s massive tragedy was the premature death of Ven Madulwawe Sobitha, the moral force that led to a common opposition candidate defeating Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The Rajapaksa brass alluded to in the previous paragraph refers to the organizers of the rallies backing their return. The first of these was organized in Kalutara by Rohitha Abeygunawardene, also known as Rattaran. His own explanation for that nickname is that was what his mother lovingly called him as a baby and infant. But there are other allegations about the origin of the name. Be that as it may, Mahinda Rajapaksa glowingly spoke of the rally’s organizer at the event and YouTube watchers are privy to everything that was said there. The next event followed at Nawalapitiya and it was organized by the redoubtable Mahindananda Aluthgamage who was Minister of Agriculture when the fertilizer ban was imposed. He has lately attempted to distance himself from that disastrous policy decision claiming that the subject was under the purview of a state minister under the agriculture ministry. He’s also on record saying he advised President Gotabaya to go slow on implementating that policy.
That will be laughed out of court by thousands of farmers who burned hundreds of effigies of the former minister who was (and is) a doughty defender of the Rajapaksas. The next rally, we are told, will be at Kurunegala and guess who the organizer is going to be? Right, first guess, none other that Johnston Fernando, one of the most visible proponents of the Rajapaksa creed and its policies. How much ice these events are cutting with the general public who will vote at the next election is anybody’s guess. Mahinda Rajapaksa went on record recently that “we are not afraid of elections.” But the perception of the many the due local government polls will not take place in March as scheduled. No doubt the public warmly welcomed President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s recent announcement that he intends halving the present number of local councilors standing at 8,000 to 4,000 prior to the next election. He also mentioned giving the executive powers of a pradeshiya sabha to a chairman-based committee rather than a single chairman saying draft laws for this will be prepared before the next local elections.
The voters who are sick of elected leeches fattening themselves off the public purse will cheer these measures. But Wickremesinghe and his government must not delude themselves that the public is not well aware that the proposed changes will take time to enter the statute. That would mean no local elections in March 2023. Given the country situation today, with Sri Lanka in the grips of its worst ever economic crisis with many of its people struggling to survive, we desperately need a government with a mandate to rule. We don’t have that now. Wickremesinghe has been installed in office by his discredited predecessor, elected by the parliamentary majority of the Rajapaksas’ SLPP and not the Sri Lankan people.
He wields executive power courtesy of the SLPP of which he’s a prisoner at least until he can constitutionally dissolve parliament in February 2023. Right now the ruling cabal needs an election, any election, like a hole in the head. Whether the oppositions dictum of no postponement of elections on which a declaration was signed last week can hold water given the current political structure is therefore very much in doubt.
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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