The will to power

The Rajapakses want to turn Sri Lanka into not just a Sinhala First country but also a Rajapaksa First country.
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By Tisaranee Gunasekara
Courtesy: Sunday Leader

“…the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of a private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Message To The Congress – 1938)

(November 02, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Is Sri Lanka to be transformed into a dynastic democracy, a One Family State behind a democratic façade? The regime is not coy about its aim – a two thirds majority in parliament, and through it a political tabula rasa on which to draw a new constitution tailor made for the dynastic needs of the Rajapakses. Without a two thirds majority, even an outstanding victory for Mahinda Rajapakse at the presidential election will be but an incomplete triumph. Deprived of the two thirds majority necessary to remake the constitution, the President’s grip on power will be ephemeral. As the President’s second term moves inexorably to its end, the dominance of the Rajapakses will wane. Once it becomes possible to see a glimmer of a post-Rajapakse future on the horizon, the SLFP will regain its backbone and politics will gradually revert to its normal, albeit bumptious course.

The Rajapakses will not leave power willingly; but without a change in the constitution, they will have to depart, however unwillingly, at the end of President Rajapakse’s second term or risk going against the constitution and the law. The key is thus not so much the presidential election but the parliamentary election. The most important plus point about the PR system is that it is structurally predisposed to prevent any party or coalition from garnering a two thirds majority. But if a substantial segment of UNP voters can be made to stay away from the polls either out of hopelessness or fear (or a combination thereof), a two thirds majority or a win close to that can become possible (this is what happened in the Southern Province). The UNP is dispirited and in organisational disarray thanks to the debilitating leadership of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Away from the urban centres, targeted violence (which is less visible and perhaps more effective than generalised violence) may suffice to keep many UNP voters and even activists away from the polling booth. The JVP can still dazzle propagandistically, but in politico-electoral terms it is a mere shadow of its former self, totally incapable of mounting a sufficiently strong challenge to the UPFA.

Given the absence of democracy and transparency in the north and the east (especially in former Tiger controlled areas), polls there will be anything but free and fair. The regime will be able to prevent the opposition from campaigning freely in these areas using spurious security concerns. If old electoral registers are used, the votes of those who are dead or in exile can enhance the regime’s tally, as will the votes of the displaced people illegally detained in internment camps. The Tamil parties are divided and none seem capable of offering a realistic way out of the impasse the Tamil people are faced with.

In such a context, many a Tamil voter may stay away from the polls, out of a sense of hopelessness, seeing it as a purely Sinhala exercise. A low poll, caused by an outbreak of absenteeism among segments of voters who are traditionally pro-UNP, will benefit the government and bring it closer to its goal of a two thirds majority. Even if the UPFA fails to win a two thirds majority outright, if the margin of victory is wide, it may be able to inveigle a sufficient number of opposition parliamentarians with the offer of portfolios. Once the Rajapakses have their two thirds, the constitutional and legal makeover of Sri Lanka into a dynastic democracy will begin in earnest.

The Curse of the Two Thirds

To err is human. But whenever a political party obtained a two thirds majority in Sri Lanka, the errors it committed surpassed the normal human scale and assumed gargantuan proportions. The ‘Sinhala Only’ would have died a natural death (and the Eelam War would not have happened), if S.W.R.D Bandaranaike’s MEP coalition did not obtain a two thirds majority in 1956. If the United Front did not get a two thirds majority in 1970, it would not have been able to indulge in a bout of constitution making which marginalised the Tamils, made them feel insecure and paved the way for Velupillai Pirapaharan (without a two thirds majority, that regime’s economic extremism and political excesses too may have been tempered). The Jayewardene government’s monumental errors, especially the Referendum of 1982, stemmed from its five sixth majority. That unprecedented win made the regime lose all sense of proportion and gave the President a disastrously misleading feeling of omnipotence; a war in the north, an insurgency in the south and foreign intervention followed. Governments without two third majorities also make more than their fair share of errors. But devoid of that absolute power a two thirds majority bestows on a ruler (and the megalomaniac mindset that goes with it), the errors are made on a normal scale, more venal and personal than monumental and historical.

Constitutional reforms or even new constitutions are possible without a government sans a two thirds majority. One of the most progressive and democratic legislations ever introduced in Sri Lanka, the 17th Amendment, came into being under a dispensation with a mere simple majority. However, the 17th Amendment received unanimous parliamentary approval, because no party wanted to be seen to be voting against a law that was so obviously beneficial to the democratic system. A party needs a two third majority not to make or change a constitution but to do so arbitrarily, riding roughshod over all opposition and dissent. Consensual constitutional making or reforming is possible without a two thirds majority. In fact it is in a context characterised by the absence of a two thirds majority that consensual constitutional changes, motivated by national and popular rather than party or family interests, become possible. (A necessary digression – it could be argued that without a five sixth majority, the Jayewardene administration would not have been able to enact the equally progressive and democratic 13th Amendment. But the key factor that made the 13th Amendment possible was international pressure. Without intervention by India, there would have been no 13th Amendment and no devolution).

Today, the 17th Amendment to the Constitution is all but dead. The Rajapakse administration’s visceral opposition has turned that progressive and democratic piece of legislation into a dead letter. This demonstrates beyond any doubt that the real aim of any constitutional making by the Rajapakses will be to enhance their power rather than to broaden and deepen democracy. A Rajapakse Constitution will shift the basic laws of the country in an anti-democratic direction. Using the bogeys of neo-Tiger and international conspiracies, provisions which nullify those rights which are the fundaments of democracy will be enshrined in the constitution and turned into the law of the land. A Rajapakse Constitution is likely to contain within itself PTA or Emergency type laws which severely limit minority and workers rights and media freedom and turn the democratic system into an empty shell. Once draconian regulations become part of the normal law and unfreedom becomes the legal norm, citizens will find it almost impossible to seek legal redress for abuses of power by the power wielders, even if the judiciary happens to be completely independent. Once abusive use of power is enshrined in the constitution, it becomes the law and thus an abuse no longer. (A classic example is the ‘strategy of the legal revolution’ used by Adolf Hitler to makeover Weimer Democracy into a one party state and turn Communists and Social Democrats into criminals and Jews into non-persons, without formally abolishing the Constitution).

The Tiger War and the Second JVP Insurgency were defeated by governments without two thirds majorities. The Premadasa administration implemented a giant developmental effort without a two thirds majority. The absolute power inherent in a two thirds majority is thus unnecessary either to protect the country or to develop it. Governments seek two thirds majorities not because they want to serve the people but because they want boundless and limitless power. The Rajapaksas have set a record in abusing their power with just a simple majority. It would not take prophetic capabilities to imagine to what abusive heights they will rise, with the untrammelled power a two thirds majority bestows on a government.

Internecine battles

Peace, if it is not to be a mere interregnum before the next calamity, must be just. Post-war, Sri Lanka is characterised and afflicted by a chronic absence of jus post bellum. Injustices and excesses are the norm in this peace. The internment camps continue to exist. Whatever real resettlement there is, it is because of international pressure. There are persistent media reports that a sizeable segment of the supposedly resettled people are either brought back to the camps or taken to other camps (rather like the way the Tigers used to ‘release’ child conscripts). There is no talk about a political solution to the ethnic problem. The APRC and the devolution project are in cold storage. In the south the regime seems to be planning to use laws enacted to combat terrorism against legitimate and democratic trade union actions. The workers will be labelled terrorists next, as media personnel and human rights activists have been in the last few years.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Chief of Defence Staff and former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka were the triumvirate which conducted and won the Fourth Eelam War. Just as they were in agreement about how the war should be waged, they also had a shared vision about the character of post-war Sri Lanka. As their public pronouncements and deeds demonstrate, all three men subscribe to a Sinhala supremacist worldview and want to rebuild Sri Lanka as a Sinhala First country. They also share a cavalier attitude towards democratic freedoms and a dangerous propensity to tar any opponent or dissenter with the ‘terrorist’ brush.

Today this triumvirate is in disarray. The reason seems to be a mismatch in personal aspirations and objectives rather than any ideological difference. The Rajapakses want to turn Sri Lanka into not just a Sinhala First country but also a Rajapaksa First country. And when a family becomes the central unit of any government, non-family members who have the capacity to overshadow family are treated with suspicion – especially once they outlive their uses. This, for instance, was the fate of Mangala Samaraweera, the man without whose tireless efforts Mahinda Rajapaksa would not have won the presidency or even the UPFA nomination. A similar fate can easily befall those who helped the Rajapakses to win the war.

If the current fracas in the power bloc turns into an internecine war, it can strategically weaken the dynastic project of the Rajapakses (just as it will confuse and confound the Sinhala supremacist camp). Had the triumvirate continued to act in unison, post-war, the regime would have become unstoppable. There would have been greater intolerance of dissent, not to mention detailed plans with ‘lists of future election results’, (as Cicero said of another triumvirate – To Atticus). The unwillingness of the Rajapakses to share power with any ‘outsider’ has created a welcome dent in the power bloc. And this weakening of the Rajapakse miasma will give the opposition a chance to democratically defeat the ruling family’s attempt to turn Sri Lanka into a dynastic democracy via a two thirds majority and a Rajapakse Constitution.

-Sri Lanka Guardian