A credible change: The ten-fold path

By Maduranga Rathnayake

(January 08, Melbourne , Sri Lanka Guardian) The most thrilling phase of a major election in the country has been the manifesto time; a time when the best promises are made, promises to be defiled as vigorously as they are publicly declared, of course, with absolute impunity.

The General’s manifesto is out. It is fresh; fresh because it comes from the General. President Rajapakse’s biggest calamity now would be his already four-year old stale Mahinda Chintanaya’s barefaced inability to compete the freshness of the General’s ten-fold path for elections are a psychological war-fare and our seasoned voters love fresh promises.

The manifestos, nevertheless, play and could have played a very significant role in our elections, particularly, due to their huge potential to breed a culture of policy-oriented voting. Usually an election manifesto reflects the ideology of the party concerned and its leadership. JRJ’s theme was “A just society”, Premadasa-“From rags to riches or making have-nots haves”, of course the makeshift President Wijethunga hardly had any discernible theme, CBK- “Ending the 17-year curse”, Wickramasinghe starting from “My pact with the people”. A careful study of the election manifestos, particularly, the post 1995 period would reveal that those manifestos coming from the main two parties share more or less the same ideology on the critical socio-economic and governance issues, resulting in the personalities of the political leaders making the difference at elections. Added to this has been the contemptuous attitude, of course such attitude being justified for obvious reasons, of the voters to manifestos as mere “election promises”. The combined effect has been the abating of a possible evolution of a culture of policy-oriented voting as opposed to blind party-based and personality-centred voting.

While, given our past experience, there may hardly be any reason to attach any particular sanctity to the General’s manifesto, the very first precept of the General’s ten-fold path, that is – “I will restore democracy and win the peace”, however, is very significant, not only because it clearly, and rightly so, identifies that the country is on its way to a Burma-style form of governance or ill-governance, but also, and most importantly, that peace, despite the end of the war, is yet to be achieved. The latter is an acknowledgment that the end of the war does not mean “peace” in its proper and macro sense, though the country certainly is terrorism-free; and the General’s this non-complacency regarding the Tamils’ issue, certainly, could make a real difference in the post war country, if elected and his first precept is duly honoured.

The General in the explanatory note for the said first precept states that his first task would be to give effect to the 17th Amendment and hold the next due parliamentary election under the new independent commissions which, if he is elected and, if implemented, would be a “giant step” toward sanity in our post 1977 election history. Then follows the abolition of the executive presidency and this is where there appears to be a conflict with the second limb of his first precept-win the peace. According to the plain grammatical meaning of the General’s explanatory note on the first precept, it appears that the Constitution would be amended only piece-meal. It could not be emphasised more that a holistic constitutional reform is indispensable to any lasting solution to the Tamils’ issue, if the General is to win the peace. It is only in an overall constitutional reform process that the several critical aspects such as Indian-style federal model and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution could be properly deliberated and incorporated into legislation and if the General, if elected, with the new parliament moves for fragmented constitutional reforms it certainly would run the risk of miscarrying his resolve to win the peace.

Obviously, the General’s ten-fold path would appeal to the masses because of its freshness; fingers-crossed, let us hope that this manifesto will not end up in the election dust-bin of our country.